[zx3psyko]

Hey, all. I've been lurking here for a few weeks, but first time posting. I've been a fan of BMWs all of my life, but never an owner. I was going to wait a few more years to purchase something used in the 25-30k range, but now I have an opportunity which I wanted to run by you guys for your opinion. Especially since I love manuals, and they seem to be disappearing, even in BMWs.

I have a friend who's leaving the country and is selling his 2011 N55 135i 6MT (base, no frills, no nav) before he does. Blue exterior, black leather interior, overall in very good condition inside and out. He says he's going to put it up for 13-14k, but will sell it to a friend for $11k. It has 96k miles at present, is his daily driver, so might be near 100k when he sells it in a month. He's the second owner and has put 60k miles on it in the last 2.5-3 years. He's given me a spreadsheet of all the maintenance he's performed (I'll try to attach to this post).

**My main question is, is this a good price and a good purchase, or a possible ticking time bomb? It will be my daily driver, and I only drive maybe 5k miles/year since I live only a few miles from my work, and work from home at least one day a week. My wife is in grad school, we have an 18-month old in Montessori, so our budget is a little tight right now, but I make pretty good money and can put away $150-200/month towards future repairs.

I'm not a gear-head, but I do oil changes, ac-refills, and brake swaps on my cars for the last 10 years, and am willing to do more, mainly because I love to learn new skills and save money. Based on this spreadsheet, there's a bunch to do in the next 5k miles or so though. My current daily driver is just a base-model 7-year-old Mazda 3 (hand-me-down from my wife, who we got an SUV for last year) which I really don't like - and again, a stick-shift BMW is my dream car and I will be purchasing one within the next 3-5 years no matter what.

**My second question is - for the eager novice, can I do a lot of the maintenance and upkeep on this myself, and is this spreadsheet good to follow for future work?

Thanks in advance for any advice - please let me know if you'd need any more information to make an educated opinion. I'd love to drive this car for the next 4-5 years or more and maybe teach myself and my son some more maintenance, and just have a great time, but don't want to turn this into a money-pit for my family.