Z4 vs SLK vs 3 series...HELP!!

[ZFourFan]

Hi,

I have always dreamed of owning a good old fashioned 2 door sports car convertible. Totally impractical but with the engine at the front and rear wheel drive. Fortunately later this year I hope to be in a position where I have the funds available to buy such a car. My budget is around £15K.

I have always looked first at the Z4 and for this money I may be looking at a '07 plate 22i upwards

Now my quandary! As an old fart and with the benefit of the advice of my wife I am little worried about the traditional Z4 canvas top. Images of drunken idiots outing their fags on the canopy worry me. Plus remembering last winter I am unsure if a canopy can hold 8 stone of snow!

As such my wife lured me to look at a new Z4 with hard top at my local BM dealer. £27k for a 09 plate is above my budget however great it looks! However there is a Mercedes SLK for sale locallyy within this budget as is a high mileage new shape 3 series with the hard top.

Who would go for a 04 plate MB SLK 350 with low mileage (on Autotrader for £11K) against the Z4 with canvas hood?

Help!!

Neil

 

[peddy]

Do you have space to store a hardtop in the summer? If so, then why not get a Zed with a hardtop, which you could use through out the winter months? That's what I and many other on the forum do.

Also there's no 22i? I assume you are referring to the 2.2 engine which was not made after 2006 when the facelift came out. Why don't you got for a 2006 3.0si for around 13-14k and then you can get a hardtop for around 1k.

 

[RichardG]

You are asking on the Z4 forum which we would advise, do you really want an impartial answer.
If you are worried about snow on the canvas in the winter you can pick a Hardtop from Ebay for about £1,000 and another £250ish to get it resprayed in the correct colour it just fastens in place with the canvas roof in the lowered position.
As for potential damage, well only you can answer that, I've had mine 7 years and have never had any trouble, though I have always lived in quiet areas, that said the zed does spend a lot of its life airport car parks.
If you ever want to carry anything bigger than a packet of sandwiches in the boot of your car and still be able to put the roof down then the canvas roofed Z4 is the one to go for, the boot space in the 3 series with the roof down is a joke.
Wondermike on here had a Z4 before jumping to an SLK and has now seen the error of his ways and returned to the fold oke:
Believe me for an impractical car the Z4 is remarkably practical, get the Zed you will not regret it and you get to be part of the best forum on the Web.
Just in case you are unsure of what the hardtop looks like

 

[Boogle]

Don't go for a 3 series soft top unless you need a family car and are desperate for a folding roof. You'll need to store the hard top somewhere too, and it's a bit bulky.

Re. the soft top - question is, what kind of area do you live in? It's very rare that a soft top is vandalised, the only reason you hear about it a lot is due to the cost of repairing it. It's far more common to lose a wing mirror or have the car otherwise damaged - that's with any car. I've also not heard of any soft tops being damaged by snow - and that includes Z4s left outside in New York when they had that blizzard. There's photos on this very forum of Z4s literally buried!

If you've got an itch for a sports car, it's going to have to be a sports car - seriously nothing compares unless you go truly extreme and get a Caterham or Atom. Don't look at any convertibles with over 2 seats, and don't look at any convertibles with an automatic gearbox.

 

[Hellequin]

and here's me thinking of going from a 3 to a Z.....
IMO, not a Merc, not good drivers cars unless you go for the extreme ones
3 Series, anything from 2.0 upwards are good. Excellent driving machines, can be fun on the right roads, reall motorway cruisers as well
Z's never owned one yet, driven a few. Good to drive, feel nice, special

 

[Hotride]

the Z4 gives you the right "sports car" feeling.
the 3 series is a nice car, the e90 has a few more features then the Zed, but it feels much heavier when your driving and no where near as sharp and nimble as the z4

have to agree the Merc's are not drivers cars - more of a posers car unless you have too much money and can afford their AMG offerings

 

[DrNick]

Go with the Zed!

The soft top of a zed isnt like the MG's/mx-5s of old where the roof was as flimsy as an umbrella...the zed is well insulated, quite, and perfectly easy to look after.

Just think of the cost of repairing one of those complicated folding hard top contraptions....!

 

[sp3ctre]

I think it depends on what you mean by "a sports car". There are those who track their cars and upgrade them with all manner of suspension mods and engine upgrades... their idea of "a sports car" may be different than others. I must say I was a passenger in an SLK280 a while back and **** me it felt like a sports car! No more or less than the Zed I might add,but I wouldn't write it off if you like the SLK.

Don't worry about snow... the roof is so small that there is only so much snow that could stand on it, and it is more than sturdy enough to handle that. The first section of the roof from the front is solid anyway. It is a very good roof to be honest.

Lastly, which ever way you boil your kettle, the 3-series is not a sports car

 

[gannet]

mine has had plenty of snow on it with no problems at all

 

[PawnSacrifice]

Lastly, which ever way you boil your kettle, the 3-series is not a sports car

Some of the best roof down drives I've had have been in the winter... through the snow on a couple of occasions,trust me, a crisp clear winter day with blue skies is even better than summer driving. If you feel you really need a hard top, the E89 (out of budget) or SLK - airscarf is brilliant! But I've had no issues with mine and that includes parking in London, Bristol and Reading regularly over the last 5 years.

ADD: all of the above goes out the window, if you don't enjoy driving them - :driving: trumps everything else.

 

[Wondermike]

Some good points above. I had a 3.0 Z4 manual and then an SLK350 auto. You wouldn't be disappointed with one.

But the SLK does lack a bit of soul.

Get a Z4 3.0Si instead.

 

[4havnfun]

I test drove the 2009 Z4 & SLK's and the BMW was hands down winner when it came to the driving experience. The SLK felt like basic transportation compared to the Z4. I think both were 3.0 litre automatics if I remember correctly. In the end I couldn't justify the $$$ for either as a 5 month summer toy so I went for a BMW certified Z4M with under 20k kms and am still very happy with my decision. A tin top would have been nice to have but this wasn't my first convertible so I was more than ok with the conventional fabric top especially given the other benefits of the M.

 

[sandere85]

if you are an old fart go with the merc i say oke:

remember a bmw is pretty stiff on the suspention and very sporty to ride.
the merc will probably be much more comfortable and will not make the misses complain about the hard ride.


why not test drive both cars and then choose the best one

 

[shambolic]

Had an SLK that we traded in for the E89 as my wife likes the folding hard roof instead of the soft top
Slk was great but the new Zed is ten times nicer place to be

 

[ZFourFan]

Hi, thanks for all the replies. The reason I joined this forum is I've always loved the Z4. It seemed a no brainer I would get one! I hear what people say about the 3 series, but my wife (who must be obeyed!) caused me to think about the reality of a canvas convertible hence its inclusion (a '56 plate 320 with retractable hard top for £16K).

Genuinely, I have looked at a private sale 280SLK with all the toys for under £12K (04 plate & 55k miles)....this gets me a nice Z4 but no hard top. I also hear what posters have said about getting a seperate hard top for the Z4.

My heart says Z4 but my head says Merc..............!

 

[powerontap]

Z =

 

[4havnfun]

My heart says Z4 but my head says Merc..............!

I'm not sure anybody is truly happy with a decision when they haven't listened to their heart. The Merc just doesn't have personality. Think accountant vs. entrepreneur.

 

[T1berious]

I've recently got a Z4M and it's my 1st convertible. It's also our 2nd car so it's not used as high mileage transport . I've driven an SLK and really you can't compare the two when it comes to driving dynamics.

The Zed is a special car and entertains in a way, that in my mind, makes it one of the best "heart over head" decisions I've ever made .

SLK can't really be called a sports car (that's a quote from a Daimler Chrysler employee by the way), more boulevard cruiser, not that that's a bad thing, but the Z4 (E85) had a very different design brief .

 

[ZermattV]

to be honest if the car is parked in area where fags are going to be put out on top of a car .. the slk will be as big a targer for keying as vandalising of the roof.

when i had an MX-5 as a daily driver it was vandalised - rock thrown at the side panel when parked in a car park - roof was fine.

I wouldn't discount MX-5 with retracting hard top - much more fun than a 320

 

[ZED_NOT_ZEE]

The Z4 will give you your classic roadster dimensions that the SLK or e92 3-series will not. However to keep the wife happy, and ease your mind about the folding soft top I'd take the e92 3-series convertible. It's a wonderful machine.

Keep in mind that any hard-top convertible will give you virtually no trunk room. So as long as you have another vehicle for your groceries and such the SLK can do. The e92 3-series you lose your trunk as well, but you do have back seats to keep groceries if you need.