Good deal on 2003 Z4?

[tamkhan]

Hi Guys,

I'm going to check out a Z tonight. Please give me some insight on whether this is a reasonable deal.

2003 2.5i
Price: $8900
40K miles
Clean title - no damages on carfax
Black exterior, red interior
Premium package

Not sure if the car has premium or sport packages. From the pictures, it looks very clean.

My last car was a 2012 Z4 lease which ended last year. I'm looking to buy this 2003 one mostly for weekend usage.

Let me know what you guys think! Thanks

[Huz-Z]

Well, it certainly looks clean from the posted pictures and the mileage is very low for a 2003 - heck, its low for a car MUCH newer. If it checks out after you've looked at the car, you may be on to something nice.

Any room to bargain on price to sweeten the deal?

[DEG]

+1

[TommyA]

Wonder what he found out.

[Goldwinghai]

I bought a 2003 2.5i 44K miles, sport package 6 months ago for $9.5. If everything checked out good, $8.9 is not bad. Perhaps the seller will knock some $$ off.

[The HACK]

I'm going to tell y'all about a car that I never bought...

A short while ago I was exploring...Looking around for a nice, used BMW to use as a daily drive. You know, like the 1991 E30 318is. That was the ultimate commuter, easy to drive, plenty of room, just enough grunt and a rock-solid, bullet proof engine that just needs a quart of oil every 3,000 miles and an oil change every 5,000. But I wasn't looking that far back, I wanted to either get back into a Z3 (I had a '97 once) or an E46 (again, hankering for my old 323Ci).

I came across a listing for a VERY clean, very beautiful 2002 E46 325iT with ~65,000 miles on it. 2 owners, in Las Vegas and California, low mileage, clean interior, very clean exterior, clean all around, and a MANUAL wagon. Price was a little on the high side from the used car dealership but I was confident that I can work them down using my mad negotiation skills. CARFAX came back clean, but CARFAX for California is useless anyway since it only reports title exchanges from DMV and there's no obligation to disclose any repairs and accidents. Since I was in no hurry to get rid of my Veloster Turbo, and knowing it's a manual wagon that it's unlikely it'll move immediately, I did a little bit more due-diligence. Car has all the maintenance records, every single oil change documented, every brake change, every receipt for tire change, every visit to the mechanics, down to the last item changed, a head gasket at 62,xxx miles. Well documented and frankly, I'd orgasm violently and shoot my wad if I get to drive a manual wagon everyday...

Wait.

...

Head gasket?

My spidey-sense started to go off like crazy. I mean, I'm not that mechanically inclined, but even a shady tree mechanic like myself should know that head gasket is a big job. Then I looked at that work order again. Head gasket changed. Thermostat changed. And water pump replaced.

Uh oh.

I took my suspicion to my mechanic buddy at EMW, and he all but confirmed my spidey-sense. That car I was looking at had the water pump fail and was over-heated, leading to replacement of the head gasket. With an over-heated engine that required a HG change, you just never know. It may run for the next 100,000 miles like a champ, or I may be chasing overheating issues weekly because of microscopic cracks that resulted from the engine overheating. The second I mentioned "head gasket" and "water pump" in the same sentence, he told me to run, not walk away from this car.

Up to this point, this story has little to nothing to do with the OP's car, and it probably never will. But, it got me thinking. The 325iT had 65,000 miles in about 14 years of operation. That's less miles driven per year than my MZ4 Coupe. The car was CLEAN inside out, like the original owner had taken extreme care of the car. I would even say "loving" care.

What would prompt the original owner to give up on a car he/she loved and cared-for for nearly 15 years? I mean, that's a freakin' long term relationship there. There are, of course, a few speculations. 1. Financial hardship. Lord knows my wife had pressure me multiple times to sell my MZ4 Coupe during the recession, when on multiple occasions I was out of a jay-oh-bee. 2. Illness/death. Or 3. Catastrophic mechanical failure resulting in the repair bill being worth more than the car, but not subject to insurance "salvage" or write-off because it's not an accident. Car had to be sold to the mechanic due to the repairs costing way more than the car's worth.

At this point, I'm just rambling and don't have any point to make. But do beware. Cars not of collectable status, with more than 8 years of operation, that has very low mileage? They're either great deals you should just jump on, or they can potentially be a head-ache masked in a great deal. Pour through the service records, look closely for tell-tale signs of expensive repairs, and if you can, find the previous owner (if this is through a third party sale) and figure out why it's being sold, since they had love the car so much for so long.

Of course, there's a flip side to this story. In 2010 I was helping a friend locate a suitable E46 M3 to take to the track. And out of no-where I found a listing on Craig's List, of all places, for a very low mileage 2005 E46 M3 coupe sans sunroof AND with SMG. It had 12,000 miles on it. When my buddy picked up the car, it had still a faint scent of that "new car smell." It was an amazingly clean E46 M3. Turns out the original owner had a 2.5 mile commute, and only drove the E46 M3 on the weekends. Then he sold it to buy a Porsche. The 2nd owner then put on 2,000 miles in a single month, and realize that it's not for him.

So the "too good to be true" type of deals ARE out there somewhere. Don't let my "car that I let get away" story stop any of you.

[Huz-Z]

??

Certainly one must be careful when buying any used car but I'm not seeing anything here that suggests that this car is a ticking time bomb.

[The HACK]

I did say I'm not trying to make any specific/particular points...But...

One thing I wanted to point out, was that the E46 325iT I had my eyes set on, didn't have any glaring "issues" that would raise anyone's suspicion. Not until I dug much deeper. And if you were to take ANY point out of that long-winded post I made, is that cars that appears super clean with very low miles, usually have a history. Whether that history is good or bad...It's up to your own sleuthing skills to find out.

[chickdr]

Of course it is a great idea to check the service history(and get a PPI). The photos appear to show a well cared for car(cosmetically speaking). Hopefully they also had it serviced regularly.

[Huz-Z]

Originally Posted by chickdr

Of course it is a great idea to check the service history(and get a PPI). The photos appear to show a well cared for car(cosmetically speaking). Hopefully they also had it serviced regularly.

I agree.

Also, a great many of the Z4 and Z4Ms owned by members of this forum were bought used with low mileage and in clean condition. I think it's fair to say that those cars have generally been solid.