Quote:
Originally Posted by muddtt
married, but no kids. I had a 135i (n54) before so I know what its capable of...but its a ticking time bomb of problems. I thought the z4 engine bay looked pretty wide open the last time I saw one in person. Hopefully its not that hard to work on if I go that direction.
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I'm married with children, so my search for sports convertibles was limited to ones with 4 seats... hence I own a FBO 135i and covet a z4
Personally I think the N54 gets a bad wrap, but I've only owned it for a year and tuned the shit out of mine - so evidence might not be on my side. I'd take it over the N55 because of my preference for performance over reliability.
My experience with the Z4 is only what I've read on the z4 forums - and I've made assumptions by the fact that the N54 is so easily tuneable, but so rarely tuned in the Z4 platform compared to that of the 135i and 335i. From what I've read, everything *should* be the same, but everything isn't quite the same and it's just a bit more difficult on the z4 platform.
My best example is the Fuel-it bucket-less stage 2 - installation for us is remove an access panel under the pack seat and swap the pump. In a z4 you need to drop the petrol tank. ... and when someone raised this in the z4 forums, the response was along the lines of "hahaha, what do you expect, you've got a Z4. I'd have expected you'd need to remove the roof first!"
I'm sure for regular maintenance it'd be same-same; and the smaller engines would have more space under the hood. But if you're looking for a platform to modify (and you may very well not be) - just expect to always be paying for the fact that you chose a smaller, more pure 'sports' chassis.
All that said - There is something very sexy about a 2-seat roadster. If you're doing lots of miles, get a 3er. But if you're after a fun sports car - I've never heard anyone say their sports car is "Too small", "Too Powerful", "Too connected to the road" or "Too nimble". We all sometimes say to ourselves "damn, I wish this ride wasn't so harsh" or "that last modification really did make this thing too loud or too twitchy" - but rarely to other people
The summary is that in descending order of 'pureness' and 'sexy' it's Z4, M3 vert, 1er vert, 3er vert; but in descending order of practicality it'd be 3er/M3, 1er vert, Z4.
You loose a whole lot of practicality by getting only two seats, and you don't necessarily pick up a lot of speed or handling. The z4 is actually not a lot smaller or lighter than a 1er convertible - but it is soo much more sexy & connected to the road.
The standard advice applies: Take both for a test drive, and see if one stands out above the other.
For most people, 2-seats or 4-seats is an either/or mandatory requirement - - so they're not often cross-shopped.