Motors Used luxury car advice?

Personally if I had 8k to buy any performance car, with "reasonable" costs (for the performance) it would be a E46 M3, such as this

http://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/201605204158150

 

I feel almost obliged to highlight the BMW Z4. Not as girly as the boxster, not as fast as the M3.

The coupe maybe worth looking at, I find the convertible cabin gets a lot of wind noise at higher (60+) speeds. The suspension seems overly firm (I've not been in an M3 to compare, but certainly harsher than a standard E46), swapping away from runflats helps a bit.

oh, and the 2006 "facelift" adds 30 odd HP to the 3.0 litre.

 

Just one of those stupid accidents - in car to car traffic, creeping along, sub 10mph, looking at something on the pavement and the Discovery in front of me had stood on the anchors all of a sudden - too late before I realised. The downside is the Disco had a tow bar which absolutely nutted the front of my car.

Coachworks company quoted £4400 to repair for a bonnet, one light and a front bumper, to which Admiral promptly said piss off. They did give me 6700 as a write off value though so pretty happy with that. The salvage value was 1750 so I bought the car back off them and sold it 3 hours later for £2150 as a CAT D write off.

Apparently a genuine BMW headlight for an E63 is over £900! :jaw drop:

E46 M3 is a pretty good shout in my opinion (although a 630i and a Z3 with the same 3.0 are more or less as fast [no no, I got that really wrong, M3 much faster], both have a pretty harsh ride but as will the E46). The issue with the E46 is getting one that hasn't been molested, which is very difficult indeed. The good ones are starting to appreciate though so it's a good time to buy if you don't want to do too many miles, don't want to modify it and will properly service it.

Didn't Bennieboy buy an E46 as a track car?

This is exactly the same purchasing decision I went through as OP after crunching my 6er and I settled on a well specced and serviced 2.0 GT Scirocco that has had a 260BHP remap. It's hilarious fun. The risks on a luxobarge were not something I wanted to dice with and I'm really glad I stuck with that decision.

That 3.0 litre petrol in the Z4 can be remapped to the 2006 facelift power/torque, as it's just a more refined engine map from BMW. Can be done for sub £300. The 6er in the same setup would then get about 36-37mpg on a motorway run if you weren't killing it.

 

Went into the back of a Disco last year - though I wasn't the one driving.

Swerved to the left at the last second, so missed the tow bar, and because the Disco is so high up we just kinda scraped under the rear left corner and came out with a couple of scratches and some minor dents.

 

I'm going a little off topic sorry.

I thought there was more to the engine differences than that. Looking into it has lead me down a rabbit hole of swapping to the 2.5 auto diff for more low down power: who drives around at 100+ anyway?.

 

Nah they both use the N52B30, I don't think there were any physical changes to the engine between facelifts - something I looked at in detail but I guess I could be wrong. The remap smoothed the 630i out so much - take off was so much better. I always thought the 3.0 in the Z4 was a bit much, 2.5 was more manageable/driveable/fun.

 

Buy something with manual transmission, automatic transmission can be pain in the a. to repair.