thecremeegg said:
As someone who is trying to sell a high-miler at the moment it's definitely a dead market. Mine's on 150k but the engine runs perfectly, it's had polybushes, steering upgrade, new starter etc etc and I can't even get a sniff of interest at £4k. I'm slowly starting to think that I might have to go down the route of parting it out which is a shame.
I did however just buy a Z4M for £10k that needs probably £2-3k of work on it but that I can do at my leisure.
High milers are not popular! (Saying as someone who has just bought one... I only looked at two, both 3.0, both 125k miles or more, and both had engines that sounded smooth as hell and like they'll run forever.)
People don't seem to appreciate that loads of the lower mileage Z4s have plenty of issues as well (pretty sure half the "immaculate" facelift ones on the market have knackered foglights, find me a 20 year old car without the odd ding and scratch, or one that wouldn't benefit some rust treatment to the underside.) And then you have the issue that things are replaced on the higher mileage ones that might not have been on a lower mileage one.
What is holding your car's value down?
(1) Most people can't afford any sort of "fun car"
(2) Most people who can afford a fun car can afford one better than a £4k Z4.
(3) It's nice to think you have half a chance of getting your money back when you resell your fun car... and buying high miles is always scary in terms of knowing how much other brits like their low milers! (History has to be at least as important as miles IMHO... and to some extent I bought on history as much as I did on what I saw when I viewed).
(4) I think the early noughties are a wonderful compromise between modern comfort and old school driveability... but on the other hand a 20 year old car isn't old enough to be a classic, nor is it new enough to be consider a new-ish car... it's old, high mileage and not classic! I have no regrets, but since buying my E86 I've been looking at other cars and thinking "I could have got a Triumph Spitfire or similar / nicer". Maybe you're not competing with cheap 60s and 70s sports cars, but maybe you are.
I am not far from you and in the next few months... or now if the price were superb ;-) .... I'm going to look out for a 3.0 E85... but I will be looking for something as cheap as possible to experience a convertible for the first time with the idea that I can sell on without much of a loss. The difference between the price a car is worth on a good day and the price you'd want to pay to give yourself a damn good chance of getting your money back easily might be 50% IMHO. And I'm guessing there's a lot more people out there with my kind of attitude than there are saying "I really want a decent E85, not overly bothered about the price as I'll be owning it for 3 or 4 years minimum".
oke:
