1999 BMW Z3 ROADSTER w/ HARDTOP!!
More Pictures at:
http://lasziv.reprehensible.net/gallery2/v/knoppj/bmw/
Welcome! Since you
are here, you are probably interested in buying an ultra cool car. Well, I’m not going to stop you. In fact, I’m going to encourage you to BUY MY
CAR!
The standard details:
1999 BMW Z3 Roadster 102914 miles
2.5Liter Inline 6 Cylinder
Manual 5sp transmission
ABS, Traction Control, Air, Power Steering, Power Seats,
Etc…
The extras! (AKA Fun Stuff):
Hard Top in
Why Atlanta Blue and not Arctic Silver to match the
car? Well, I liked the contrast
better. It was my personal
preference. You can have the top
repainted if you don’t like it. This is
a real, BMW hardtop. This hard top is
fairly rare—when you can find them on eBay they tend to go for around
$1,000.00. This goes on easy though it
takes to people to put the top in place.
It usually takes around 5-10 minutes to mount the top. It weighs around 48lbs if I remember
right. It also comes with a wood framed
stand with foam supports. Plus, I have a
storage bag for the top. I usually keep
the hard top on for the months of Dec-Feb depending on weather. It also makes for a quiet road trip compared
to the soft top.
Dinan Free Flow Exhaust
This is a nice, stainless steel muffler. I paid $799.00+S&H for this. This unit adds 4HP and 3lb/ft of torque – not
to mention a nice sound. You can get
full info on this here:
http://dinancars.com/SeriesPrint.asp?prod=720
Kenwood Excelon In Dash MP3 CdPlayer with Sirius
Satellite Radio receiver
This unit is really nice.
The button colors are red (aka amber) and
match the interior color of the factory BMW lights nicely. It can play MP3 CDs as well as standard
CDs. It has built in Sirius Satellite
Radio controls and there is a satellite receiver installed under the passenger
seat. This unit was professionally
installed by Ultimate Electronics. There
is also a remote, though it’s fairly useless given the size of the car’s
interior.
Bilstein Sport Shocks
I put these on 20 or 30 thousand miles ago. They have a lifetime warranty. I can’t believe how much these things
improved the handling and cornering of the car.
I also put in heavy duty shock mounts as the stock rear shock mounts
were prone to wear out. These mounts
should last another 25k miles.
Brembo Brake Rotors, Pagid Brake Pads, Stainless Steel Brake Lines
The rotors and pads are only for the front. The break lines are for all four brakes.
These will come in the trunk as they have not yet been installed. I bought them about a year ago at a cost of
over 500.00 dollars and have not yet needed to replace them. I was waiting for the front brakes to wear to
the point of needing replaced – hasn’t happened yet.
Soft Top Headliner
This isn’t a huge deal.
However, it does provide extra warmth and noise protection. It also hides the internals of the soft top
quite nicely. Before I installed the
headliner the car was far noisier with the soft top up and it was possible to
see the entire frame structure supporting the top.
Other fun info:
This car has a 2.5Litre in-line six cylinder gasoline
engine. This is probably BMW’s most
reliable engine. It has won numerous
engineering awards and can easily go 200k miles. I was once talking to a rep at a performance
BMW shop (Bavarian Auto – where the brake parts came from) who mentioned he had
recently bought a 3 series with 180sh thousand miles. When I questioned the mileage he laughingly
said it was only half used up.
Even though the car wears the 2.3 badge, it is really a
2.5Litre. Thank the wonders of BMW’s
marketing department for this fun story.
The story I heard is that this was a marketing trick to try and help cover
the weak performance of the “upgraded” 2.8L engine. The 2.8L model, while far more powerful than
the 2.5L, performed only 1/10th of a second faster than the 2.5L in
0-60 tests and faired equally everywhere else.
This lack of performance was due to the added weight of the 2.8L. Do some research and you will see that BMW never
offered in a 2.3L engine in the Z3. (I’m not even sure BMW has ever made a 2.3L
engine.) Obviously, it would be hard to justify the extra several thousand
dollars the 2.8L version commanded knowing this information.
BMW generally uses their model numbers to identify the
series and engine in the car. For
example:
330ci = 3 series, 3.0Litre Coupe
318i = 3 series 1.8Litre
HOWEVER, a 323i is a 3 series 2.5Litre
MORE CONFUSING! A 325i is also a 2.5Litre
Back to persuading
you to buy my car…
This car was under BMW extended warranty until it reached
100k miles. All scheduled inspections were
performed. All service records are on
file at Plaza BMW in
For those unfamiliar with BMWs, the car has a built in
computer system to analyze driving habits and tell you when to do things like
oil changes and inspections. According
to the BMW service center, this car goes about 15k miles between oil changes
and requires synthetic oil. According to
the manual the oil is to be changed when the maintenance light comes on. The service center advises to change the oil
at least once/year regardless of mileage.
This car has been rock solid and dependable for me. I have taken it on several road trips as far
as KY. The only problems I have had with
the car were an ABS sensor and window motor.
Both were replaced under warranty.
I’ve used the car as a both a daily driver and a second car off and on
over the past several years.
Sad info:
Well, this is both good and bad: A little over a year ago I
was at the Walgreen’s down the road.
When I came out, I found that some vandal’s had cut a hole in the soft
top. Obviously this is bad because the
top had a big whole in it. Though, this
is good as the insurance company paid to have a new, straight from the BMW
factory, top installed. So, the top is
in pristine shape.
The other sad info is that there is a small dent in the hood
and some scratches. This is from a piece
of road debris. Specifically, the road
debris was a large chunk of tire from a tractor-trailer. That is why I’m selling the car with two
prices. I have not bothered to get the
car in to the body shop as the dent is not too noticeable. The quote I received was approximately
$850.00 for the repair as the entire hood must be repainted.
Price:
$9,000.00 as is
$10,000.00 with hood repaired
Kelly Blue Book Retail Value on this car is $13,240!
You may ask why not $9150 (10,000 – 850 for repair) as is
and $10k repaired. Well, frankly the
time and hassle required of me to get the hood repaired is worth $150.00 to
me. So, if you want it as is, I’m
knocking another $150 off of the price so I don’t have to deal with the hassle
of the body shop.
Terms: I will expect
a $500.00 deposit to hold the car for one week if financing needs to be
arranged. If you want the car repaired,
we will work something out; however, IN NO CASE WILL I REPAIR THE CAR WITHOUT
RECEIVING A NON-REFUNDABLE MONETARY TRANSACTION. Sorry to be so strict, but I’m not going to bother
repairing the hood based solely on “good faith” that you will then purchase the
car after I’ve spent the money on the repair.
If you are interested in the car or have any questions, feel
free to email me at:
knoppj at reprehensible.net
(remove spaces and replace “at”
with @)
Thanks for visiting!