HIGH MILLAGE!!!!buying the car

[bluesaz3]

Hi All ,only been on this site for less than a week and found it to be very good for the z enthusiast .

Noticed a few people looking for advise in regards to buying the car .
A few members have posted, not to be to concerned about the millage as long has you have the documentation to back up the history of the servicing carried out on the car .

And i agree totally with the point, its better to have a fully serviced car than a under serviced low millage car engine wise.

Having said this i would be interested to hear how many miles or kilometers under normal use would the expected engine life be .And when i say normal i understand normal could have a large variation of the interpretation of what normal is .And, i would think each engine would have different issues dependent on its year and cc 1.9 /2.0/2.2/2.8 /3.0/3.2

I Would ad that most claped engines could be replaced from a lower millage equivalent powered bmw model .
In asking this question, hoping to give prospective buyers a better incite of what to expect and look for .
look forward to reading you posts .
Cheers,All.

Mick.

 

[Cooper]

My non-professional opinion is about 10,000 Klm per year and that's assuming there are some long runs in there as well! Engines that don't get up to proper temp regularly [I.e. shops and back] seem to have issues - so I am told

 

[Pingu]

A well maintained engine will last longer than the metalwork around it.



The problems start when the cars are cheap to buy. A car that is cheap to buy is usually maintained on the cheap. Why spend £250 on a proper service with the correct oils and checks when a £99 service with a free MOT will do just as well.

As @Cooper says, how the car is used can make a big difference, but a town car should be serviced appropriately for a town car - they seldom are.

I bought a car that had been used in London for four years with a FBMWSH. It was rubbish until I serviced it, cleared the blocked hoses.and changed the (lifetime) gearbox oil - turns out that it's quite a nice car.

 

[mrscalex]

As a very rough rule of thumb I consider under 100k miles to be the ideal place for a Z3. Under 80k to be low mileage and under 60k to be unusually low mileage.

While I think most people would cheerfully back a Z3 engine to reach 200k miles I start to get twitchy over 130k and personally wouldn't buy something over 150k.

But you've got to look at the whole picture. This is just my way of looking at things.

 

[NZ00Z3]

The 6 cylinder engine with a regular service of good oil will last 250 to 300 miles. Over heating kills them very quickly. This information has been gleaned from various Z3 and BMW forums that I frequent.