i actually had a BMW 2005 Z4 3.0i SE for just over a year, one of best cars ive ever had!
Good points:
. Handling brilliant
. Very nippy (0-62 5.8 secs)
. reasonable on fuel
. easily big enough for a 7ft person to drive.
. Sport mode on its a completely different car!
. Roof goes up and down quickly
. boot space is pretty big when expansed when roof is up.
. Great fun in sport mode with traction controll off.
. trip computer is good.
. Brilliant with roof down.
Bad points:
. 18" alloy renown for cracking
. unless you get lucky on spec u don't have any cup holders
. Tyres expensive
. little room to move about inside (But i am 6FT 2)
. devalues pretty fast
. hard to get in and out of when roof is up.
. hard to get out of in tight pakring spacers, even though window opens.
. Very bad reversing view when reversing out of a drive or tight space - Fine with roof down!
. Seat belts often get caught in doors and scratch the inside of the door.
. little storage inside the car.
In all its a sports car
really not a daily driver, but i used it as one hence i found some of the bad spots.
one more thing if your going to pull away fast from lights or the line, turn traction control off or you will head butt there steering wheel (Cut power completely when it starts to spin or loose grip)
Mine personally used to piss on Porches on the motor ways and even beat and ST in it once
it all falls down to whether the wife will like it or not. imo i would go trade to get the warranty, but then private would be much much cheaper.
one thing to check if u go privet is that the Sat nav has the disc in it and that the 6CD changer works correctly. Another thing check mirrors get hot because some people may knock one off and never wire it back on.
the last thing to watch out for it that sometimes when you brake hard in some of them the traction control light will come on and stay on, i never worked out what this meant, but it most certainly didnt turn the Traction control off.
Grey is nicest colour by far
Joe.