Question - should I buy a 2005 Z4 for £2000?

M

merlineater

Member
Hey guys

Looking for a bit of advice.

My girlfriend's father is loosely looking to sell his 05 reg Z4 (ie not desperate but knows I'm looking for a new ride. It's a 2.0 with 67k miles. In good condition as I understand it, he gets a full service every year and has had no problems with breakdowns etc. He's floated around £2k for it.

Obviously would need to test drive etc before committing but I wondered if you guys could advise whether this would be a steal at £2k? If you could also advise on any critical checks to make on the test drive that would be great.

Many thanks
Chris
 
£2k sounds pretty good to me! not many cheaper ways into 2 seater sportscar ownership other than an MX5.

with only 67k on the clock it should have plenty of serviceable life left in it... usual checks for a secondhand car id say really - only additional thing to check would be the operation of the roof.
 
great deal on a great little car.... I would, however, test drive some 2.5l and 3.0l versions as whilst the 2.0 may feel nice you could find yourself very quickly yearning for something quicker, at which point you may well wish you spent the extra money on the bigger engine. That said if you do go for the 2.0 and want to upgrade at a later date paying £2k I don't think you will lose anything on resale
 
That's a very good price but bear in mind the 2.0l engines seem to suffer far more reliability issues than the 6 pots so you may well need an additional pot of money to keep it sweet when it goes wrong.
 
its a no brainer, buy it, you don't like it, sell it, you wont lose anything at that price, absolute bargain
 
Buy it use it flip it for £3500.00 happy days. Then give him a couple hundred when you do, as I can guarantee he will be pissed!
That's my advice. It's a no brainer t that money. Hell ill give you a £200.00 profit straight off.
 
Welcome to the forum OP. :thumbsup:

Like I said on another forum, at that price you really can't go wrong! (Seems everyone on here agrees). :lol:
 
Monkeydonkeyratmagic said:
From my experience... Not a f***ing chance. It's cheap for a reason. Probably a shitter with all kinds of gremlins just waiting for a full moon and the rain.
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Did you read the post, or just the heading? :headbang:

From what the OP says it doesn't sound like it's been abused.
 
Mr Tidy said:
Monkeydonkeyratmagic said:
From my experience... Not a f***ing chance. It's cheap for a reason. Probably a shitter with all kinds of gremlins just waiting for a full moon and the rain.
Click to expand...

Did you read the post, or just the heading? :headbang:

From what the OP says it doesn't sound like it's been abused.
Click to expand...

Neither did mine. It ran spot on. Everything worked perfectly... for 3 weeks, then it leaked, pissed and drank oil, abs pump and steering motor died. Had some weird unheard of issue of the steering going really heavy with a red handbrake light and no fault codes. Light sensor mech snapped. Ate both bottom arms and lollies. Prop shaft doughnut turned to cheese.
Regardless of mileage these motors are getting on. And lest we forget... this isn't a German car. It's cheaply build American made crap with parts made in Mexico. True story. My dead abs pump was Hencho En Mexico.
 
Monkeydonkeyratmagic said:
From my experience... Not a f***ing chance. It's cheap for a reason. Probably a shitter with all kinds of gremlins just waiting for a full moon and the rain.
Click to expand...
You obviously didn’t the op post, I am guessing his father in law, doesn’t need the car anymore, and rather than have the hassle of selling it, offers it to family at mates rates, like he is going to deliberately sell him a dog and put up with the grief, if it’s like it sounds it really is a no brainer
 
Thanks for all your feedback everyone - much appreciated!

Sounds like the consensus is largely 'yes' which is great news. There's been a couple of mentions around engine issues around the 2.0l engine - do you think this is a big deal? Am curious to know a little more about the particular problems

In any case, I do believe it's been well looked after and I doubt anyone's trying to pull a fast one :) if that's the case perhaps I have bigger relationship issues to sort out :rofl:
 
The more serious problems are timing chain / tensioner related. Exhaust manifolds / cats crack frequently and there are common but more minor emissions related fault codes that seem hard to resolve. Valvetronic motors seem to be more prone to failure on the N46 as well for some reason.
 
Monkeydonkeyratmagic said:
........And lest we forget... this isn't a German car. It's cheaply build American made crap with parts made in Mexico. True story. My dead abs pump was Hencho En Mexico.
Click to expand...

Interesting that the Crap American E85/6 suffered significantly lower warranty claims than the German built E89 according to Warranty Direct's figures. The e85/6 was better than average with a score of 95, the E89 scored worse than average with 124. https://www.reliabilityindex.com/
 
I don't think where they are screwed together has much of an impact on reliability these days. Manufacturers have pretty good processes in place. More to do with the actual parts used, and of course BMW don't make parts - the Pierburg electric water pump on the N52 is a good example. In terms of the N54 E89, I suspect the fuel pumps / injector / wastegate / cracked alloys issues alone amount to more warranty claims than there was in the entire E85/E86 production run.
 
Buy it!! Is a bargain. As said before, if you don't like it or want more power, sell it at a profit and buy something else. :thumbsup:
 
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