Replacement for a Z4
Discussion
Bit of a thread revival, but sat having lunch sunday and outside up pulled an SLK350 with an AMG bodykit. I looked pretty good actually. Very aesthetically pleasing. Checked out the stats and the V6 seems to run a decent bit of power, with the benefit of hard top roof down motoring.
Have I missed a trick here? As they can be had for circa £6k which seems a bit of a steal. Is it the 'hairdressers' reputation they have?
Have I missed a trick here? As they can be had for circa £6k which seems a bit of a steal. Is it the 'hairdressers' reputation they have?
coldel said:
Bit of a thread revival, but sat having lunch sunday and outside up pulled an SLK350 with an AMG bodykit. I looked pretty good actually. Very aesthetically pleasing. Checked out the stats and the V6 seems to run a decent bit of power, with the benefit of hard top roof down motoring.
Have I missed a trick here? As they can be had for circa £6k which seems a bit of a steal. Is it the 'hairdressers' reputation they have?
If you're aware of the Z4 chassis limitations, then you'll find the SLK worse in every department. It doesn't even pretend to be a sports car.Have I missed a trick here? As they can be had for circa £6k which seems a bit of a steal. Is it the 'hairdressers' reputation they have?
If you can't see the limitations in the Z4 chassis, then you might not notice the difference moving to the SLK. It's probably a much more accomplished long distance cruiser.
The Mercedes M272 V6 has a reputation for bork, specifically the balance shafts. I'm not clued up enough to know how much of the risk is real vs. myth, but that might be one of the reasons why V6 Mercs of that era (whether SLK, E or ML series) don't fetch much used.
Plus the Z4 can still be a reasonable facsimile of a sports car whereas the slushbox-equipped SLK has no pretentions other than to be a cruiser.
Plus the Z4 can still be a reasonable facsimile of a sports car whereas the slushbox-equipped SLK has no pretentions other than to be a cruiser.
I live in zone 3 london, you dont get to stretch and test the limitations of chassis that often to be honest 
I guess my usership is a mix of just getting about around town (when I dont fancy using the wifes Qashqai), heading out to car meets, the occasional boot down A roads, and a bit more few and far between, country roads.
Saying that...Im sat here looking at 987 Boxsters for around 10k now
I guess my usership is a mix of just getting about around town (when I dont fancy using the wifes Qashqai), heading out to car meets, the occasional boot down A roads, and a bit more few and far between, country roads.
Saying that...Im sat here looking at 987 Boxsters for around 10k now
coldel said:
I live in zone 3 london, you dont get to stretch and test the limitations of chassis that often to be honest
I guess my usership is a mix of just getting about around town (when I dont fancy using the wifes Qashqai), heading out to car meets, the occasional boot down A roads, and a bit more few and far between, country roads.
Saying that...Im sat here looking at 987 Boxsters for around 10k now
The early 3.2 987 is the pick of the bunch. Updated chassis and ergonomics, but reliable engine. I guess my usership is a mix of just getting about around town (when I dont fancy using the wifes Qashqai), heading out to car meets, the occasional boot down A roads, and a bit more few and far between, country roads.
Saying that...Im sat here looking at 987 Boxsters for around 10k now
coldel said:
I live in zone 3 london, you dont get to stretch and test the limitations of chassis that often to be honest
I guess my usership is a mix of just getting about around town (when I dont fancy using the wifes Qashqai), heading out to car meets, the occasional boot down A roads, and a bit more few and far between, country roads.
Saying that...Im sat here looking at 987 Boxsters for around 10k now
Zone 2 here I guess my usership is a mix of just getting about around town (when I dont fancy using the wifes Qashqai), heading out to car meets, the occasional boot down A roads, and a bit more few and far between, country roads.
Saying that...Im sat here looking at 987 Boxsters for around 10k now
Budget £2-3k to refresh an old Boxster unless you can find one with evidence of recent work. Suspension in particular. Having said that, a baggy worn-out Boxster will still probably be a better steer than a stock E85.
C70R said:
The early 3.2 987 is the pick of the bunch. Updated chassis and ergonomics, but reliable engine.
Was looking at circa 10k 987 S 2005-2006ish ... mileage seems to be around 90k for that money. I don't know enough about Boxsters and their IMS and Bore Score issues might have to have a read up...You definitely get itchy feet with cars OP for sure!
Wishing you all the best whichever way you go/whatever happens.
I generally tend to get a bit too attached to cars I like in comparison to you, however I do often feel like I could be missing out on a nice/different car being like that though.
Wishing you all the best whichever way you go/whatever happens.
I generally tend to get a bit too attached to cars I like in comparison to you, however I do often feel like I could be missing out on a nice/different car being like that though.
cerb4.5lee said:
You definitely get itchy feet with cars OP for sure!
Wishing you all the best whichever way you go/whatever happens.
I generally tend to get a bit too attached to cars I like in comparison to you, however I do often feel like I could be missing out on a nice/different car being like that though.
Sometimes I think I'd have been much better off financially if I'd been more like you and stretched myself to cars I genuinely thought I would love and keep for a long time, but I'm just not wired up that way it seems, and for sure I've experienced a wide variety of cars that way which I don't regret doing (my wallet does though). Wishing you all the best whichever way you go/whatever happens.
I generally tend to get a bit too attached to cars I like in comparison to you, however I do often feel like I could be missing out on a nice/different car being like that though.
That's actually why I'm somewhat surprised by my revisiting of the Boxster, but ultimately I let myself off for that as I never had the original one long enough to form any solid opinions or even feel like I'd enjoyed the car properly. How long will it last though....
TameRacingDriver said:
That's actually why I'm somewhat surprised by my revisiting of the Boxster, but ultimately I let myself off for that as I never had the original one long enough to form any solid opinions or even feel like I'd enjoyed the car properly. How long will it last though....
I think you're bang on going for another Boxster because it was taken away from you TRD. In a similar vein I was gutted back in 2001 when a chap in a Mondeo crashed into me and it wrote off my XR4x4 that I'd had for 5.5 years. I didn't have any intention of changing it at the time because I still loved it, but it definitely is frustrating if you end up losing a car that way I reckon. I did have an XR4x4 before that one, but I only had it for 9 months because I sold it to buy a house back in 1995, so I really wanted to try another one at the time as well.
TameRacingDriver said:
Sometimes I think I'd have been much better off financially if I'd been more like you and stretched myself to cars I genuinely thought I would love and keep for a long time, but I'm just not wired up that way it seems, and for sure I've experienced a wide variety of cars that way which I don't regret doing (my wallet does though).
That's actually why I'm somewhat surprised by my revisiting of the Boxster, but ultimately I let myself off for that as I never had the original one long enough to form any solid opinions or even feel like I'd enjoyed the car properly. How long will it last though....
I do buy the cars I want, but I just dont ever love a car enough to want to keep it long term. The only car I actually regret selling was the Celica GT4 ST205, it was just so different and now its so rare. Everything else I enjoyed owning but dont regret selling. That's actually why I'm somewhat surprised by my revisiting of the Boxster, but ultimately I let myself off for that as I never had the original one long enough to form any solid opinions or even feel like I'd enjoyed the car properly. How long will it last though....
coldel said:
I do buy the cars I want, but I just dont ever love a car enough to want to keep it long term. The only car I actually regret selling was the Celica GT4 ST205, it was just so different and now its so rare. Everything else I enjoyed owning but dont regret selling.
A good mate of mine had one of those. I always enjoyed driving it and having a fair bit of fun with him out on the roads in the 200SX as well. I've had a few nice motors over the years, but the 200SX(tuned up to around 250bhp) is still the one that I miss the most though(had it for 4 years/40k miles). I still look back and hanker after it even now, and I just had so much in it and I spent most of the time going sideways in it as well!
It was pretty much the perfect car for me in terms of performance/weight/size(I roughly timed it at 0 to 60 in 5 seconds dead/plus it was quicker off the line than my mates stage 1 tuned Sapphire Cosworth). It was a great time for driving in my life back then. Where I was living at the time everyone seemed up for a bit of fun in a performance car, and I remember messing about with a Celica GT4 ST185/Mk1 Focus RS/S2000/Astra GTE 16v/R33 Skyline/MR2 Turbo etc. Such good times and you just don't seem to get that sort of thing happening now in comparison.
Yes the Celica got a lot of stick (oh its heavy, its AWD etc) but it was on par with the fabled Cosworth and if the works rally team hadnt tried to be clever with the turbo cheat it probably would have won a stack of WRCs. Amazing that back in the mid 90s they had a car out the box doing over 250bhp on the road. The beauty of homologation eh!
coldel said:
I do buy the cars I want, but I just dont ever love a car enough to want to keep it long term. The only car I actually regret selling was the Celica GT4 ST205, it was just so different and now its so rare. Everything else I enjoyed owning but dont regret selling.
Same here really. The only car I regret selling was the dc2 Integra, but to be fair at the time I'd never even owned a rwd car so that was an itch that needed to be scratched. To be fair the mk1 Eunos RS-LTD that followed it could be a contender too, if for no other reason than rarity and the value now compared to when I sold it. Otherwise I've never loved any car though for it to be a long term keeper.Maybe I would have thought different if I could have had stuff like Lotus Exige or Evora, Porsche 996 and so on, then again, would I have really?
I guess if you've got constantly itchy feet, then you're probably driving the wrong car. No harm in trying something else out, to see if it's for you or not.
Having said that, based on the conversations prior, I wonder whether the Boxster is going to tick the right boxes for you. If you're not really that bothered by 'enthusiastic driving', you're probably not going to get a load of additional benefit from the Boxster's better chassis (and it really is better). When you weigh that up against the significant increase in maintenance costs, I wonder if it's going to pay itself back.
Even though now feels like a terrible time to finance a used car, have you considered stretching to an E92 M3? It's a car that feels really quite special at 6-7/10ths on the road, but is very liveable as a daily/only car.
Having said that, based on the conversations prior, I wonder whether the Boxster is going to tick the right boxes for you. If you're not really that bothered by 'enthusiastic driving', you're probably not going to get a load of additional benefit from the Boxster's better chassis (and it really is better). When you weigh that up against the significant increase in maintenance costs, I wonder if it's going to pay itself back.
Even though now feels like a terrible time to finance a used car, have you considered stretching to an E92 M3? It's a car that feels really quite special at 6-7/10ths on the road, but is very liveable as a daily/only car.
Edited by C70R on Thursday 23 March 11:31
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