.

sold my m 2 months ago 29000 miles on her .got a nice 11 plate 35is miss the m .but I have to say I am really warming to the 35is so when the nice weather comes I think I will be in love with it .give a chance
 
James your worrying too much, the E89 is far from a troublesome car and I bet much better than the MINI with regard to niggles etc. If you read the forums how many E89 roofs have failed or been troublesome? very very few. More and more cars now have electronic oil level readers, my M135i has one and doesn't bother me in the least.

The ride comfort on the Zed is never going to be cosseting, its not that type of car but fitting standard rubber over the RunFlats will help a great deal.

The MINI is OK but not a patch on the Zed IMHO and is pretty fugly in Countryman guise.

Tim.
 
I think that there is also the " buyers remorse" that I've certainly had before( I e WTF have o spent so much money on). That's also stopped me from feeling all ok after a purchase , for a short time .
 
jamesbond said:
thanks Ronk

happy with that reply ..

I'm glad you didn't think it was over simplified or indeed abrupt. :thumbsup:
My only regret about my 3.0 E89 is I wasn't patient enough to wait for the right 35is :( Never mind it's still fast enough to get an old fella into trouble and has enough toys.

I really do enjoy my car you can gather!
 
All the issues you have listed were there for you to know about before you bought your car.
Not having a dipstick is strange but you can check the oil via the stalk.
Although there have been reported roof issues none seem to be terminal.
Its a semi sports car, its never going to be as smooth as a family car.
And all cars if you look closely enough will have hoards of people slating them with lists upon lists of faults, use it and see if yours develops any faults personally and then make up your mind.
As for swapping for a countryman, if you are worried about the Z4 being badly made the minis are worse.
 
jamesbond said:
1. no dipstick to check the oil (crazy I know)
2. If the folding top fails, there is no emergency open or close procedure ( I know I have BMW assist for 3 years)
3. Hard ride even with adaptive suspension (so can change the tires)
4. Then I read the E89 fault section on this forum, and thought Jesus Christ is this car going to hold together for the long term

1. It takes time but you get used to it. I used to hate it but now I like it a lot & find it far more convenient.

2. never thought about this... now I'm a little concerned :o

3. Poor ride quality on getting close to the lowest profile RFT tyres you can buy. What did you expect? Get on some non-RFT tyres, lose the road noise as well as gaining loads of traction & compliancy. Also reduces the forces being transmitted to the rim (eg. cracked & out of true wheels) plus reduces wear & tear on the suspension. Just get some decent water-based tyre weld & something like the BMW mobility kit. I've just put RFT tyres back on my 1 series in preparation of going back to a BMW dealership, I seriously thought the car was broken within 100m of leaving the fitting station the ride quality an nose levels were that much higher. And that was from my winter tyres which are louder & harsher than my summer tyres.

4. Can say this about every forum which has a faults section. Actually this one looks quite good, it doesn't seem to have nearly as many catastrophic failure faults as some other cars :).
 
I think the ride must be down to the wheels. I have the std wheels with run flats and the ride is no worse than other cars I've had.

Sure if you hit a pothole you know about it but it's really not that bad.

Stick with it I'm keeping mine for years and I normally swap after a year no danger of that with the 35is :D
 
Jasey said:
I think the ride must be down to the wheels. I have the std wheels with run flats and the ride is no worse than other cars I've had.
I'd say that the Z4 experience on 18" RFT tyres will be about the same as my 1er. In that on my 1er I didn't notice how bad things were until I moved back to RFT tyres.
 
The Bridgestone tyres are the problem ! I have 19's on Bridgestone rft's & the ride on sport mode is poor. On comfort mode it's a bit more bearable. Have 20's on the 640 rft's & the ride on all settings is really good,it has DUNLOP rft's fitted.

The 35is could be better with non-rft's even 19's with Michelin pss on. Saying that 100 miles is not long enough to make up your mind. I've done 4000 miles on mine since last May & that's is just loosing up. Love it even with the rft's :thumbsup:
 
Get some quality 17" bmw approved runflats on some natty oem bmw 17" wheels and youll never look back.

Recommend the conti sprotcontacts 2
 
I can't understand how the dia of the wheel can change the ride quality !
Tyre profile, tyre manufacturer and type of tyre I can accept but increased rim diameter can only help over pot holes.
 
ronk said:
I can't understand how the dia of the wheel can change the ride quality !
Tyre profile, tyre manufacturer and type of tyre I can accept but increased rim diameter can only help over pot holes.

Smaller diameter alloy with icreased tyre profile = cushier ride, larger diameter alloy with decreased tyre profile = harsher ride

There are differences between runflat manufacturers with the same profile tyre, Bridgestone runflats as fitted on the Zed I've found pretty bad on 18" wheels whereas Dunlops on 18s which were fitted to my old 1 Series where markedly comfier.

Tim.
 
ronk said:
I can't understand how the dia of the wheel can change the ride quality !
Tyre profile, tyre manufacturer and type of tyre I can accept but increased rim diameter can only help over pot holes.
Afaik bigger wheels generally = lower profile tyres.

But I'm no tyre engineer :-)
 
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