Hi guys, new member on the hunt for a Z4

[jaydee]

Hi guys, joined up the other day as I start the hunt for my next car. I'm currently driving an e46 M3 and fancy a change to a z4. In an ideal world it would be another M car but I'm going to be on a budget of my car sale plus a bit on top.

Unfortunately this rules out a z4m which I would have loved to have tried. At the moment I'm looking at 3.0si's as they seem to fit my budget well and have a decent amount of ooomph to.

I'm not really going to be able to figure out how this change will go until I get out and test drive a few cars as the M3 is a tough act to follow.

I'm hoping you guys can help me get into the right car as I know very little about the z4. Also I'd love to know if anyone has made the move from an m3 themselves as it's quite an unusual choice

In the meantime here's the m3 which will be replaced

Next job is to get the M3 completely back to standard and ready for sale, although if the right car comes up I'll happily be part exing as I hate selling cars

After looking through endless ads on auto trader and the other usual places I'm struggling to figure out the specs especially on the hifi. Ideally I want the best sound system possible and also Bluetooth if possible. Lots of the cars I'm seeing have the business head unit which I know from experience is not up to much. Is there an easy way of telling what is fitted if it's not listed in the spec? I'm seeing the odd one with professional head units but have no idea what that means for the rest of the system.

Also after having experienced the sat nav in my e46 I'm not sure if I'm bothered about having this. I find it very old and clunky and always use my phone instead. Am I wrong here as it looks like it's the same generation?

Look forward to meeting and chatting with everyone

 

[Worcester_spoon]

Welcome jaydee.

Can't help much with the audio questions, but if the M is out of the question, stepping from what you have you defo want the face lifted Si over the prefacelift SE/Sport. The N52 engine is about 10% up on power over the M54 (265/230). Not going to be anywhere near M3 levels, but many say its the best engine in there as it has all the real world power you'll ever need.

A few nice examples in the for sale section currently that are worth a look.

Good luck with the search. Lovely looking M3 BTW - you should put a bit more info (mileage/servicing/extras etc) and a price on here, as you never know...

 

[srhutch]

Hi and welcome. Lovely looking M3. Still have a soft spot for these.

The pro head units are no different than business ones, except they gave no screen as are used in combination with sat nav.

 

[jaydee]

Thanks for the warm welcome guys

I've got my eye on a couple of cars which I can part ex mine against, still a bit confused on spec and colour combos though. There seems to be a lot of black face lift coupes about and also grey ones too. If there's no difference between business and professional audio other than sat nav that makes things easier. Are there any colour combos to avoid for resale?

I'm also toying with the idea of an auto although that may go out of the window after I've driven one if the box is not up to some spirited driving, I'm never owned an auto BMW and I can't help but think they might be a little bit too lazy for me, although I do fancy driving one to see what I think.

The speaker systems in these really confuse me, not one add I've seen says which system is installed. When I was looking for the m3 I just needed to find one with harmen karden and I knew I had the top spec system.

My car needs a few bits sorting before sale so I'm going to focus on that and keep my eye on the ads

 

[jaydee]

One question, does the coupe take the same wheel offsets as the z4 m? I ask as I have lots of spare wheels for the m3 hanging around and I'd like to know if they will fit the z4 ok