Folks,

 

I currently own an 'N' reg BMW M3 EVO 6 speed, a nice fast car. I am looking to purchase a motorbike as well, so rather than be greedy I thought Id trade in the M3 and buy an alternative car for less money, (BMW worth £15,000), and a bike.

 

As much as I love the M3 I must admit the 300ZX is a seriously good looking car, and I can pick up a reasonable quality one for circa £8,000, according to the autotrader.

 

My only concern is the running costs, obviously the BMW is rather expensive to run and really nasty to insure (Im paying £1,600). Would you say the Nissan would cost me more to run? does anyone have any ideas? I do appreciate the car will be older and things will need replacing in time. Also am I much safer sticking with a UK car or are imports ok?

 

Sorry for all the questions, and thanks for your help!!

A 300ZX in standard form won't perform as good as your M3! However, with a few tweeks, power output can be improved to a more than reasonable 400bhp.

 

Reliability should generally still be good but you have to consider possible turbo replacement at sometime if it hasn't already been done.

 

UK spec cars are generally high mileage cars that vary in condition. Japanese import cars have lower mileage although it's difficult to get hold of any history with them. If you do then it's normally in Japanese.

 

Running costs for a daily driver is slightly above average. A 400bhp 300ZX will give you anything from 15mpg to 25mpg depending on how you drive it. Rear tyres can be demolished in as little as 3000miles but again it depends how you drive

 

Steve

High mileage UK cars have hopefully done their miles on the motorway and as a Z is only ticking over at legal motorway speeds the mileage is no big deal. My high miles UK car looks hardly worn inside whereas one 40k miles import I looked at had the leather worn on the steering wheel and gearstick. Made me think of a very nervous driver doing sprints all around a big city in rising sun land with his sweaty hands wearing out the gearstick and steering wheel. I have to say I also saw some really top notch imports as well but my insurers wanted £300 more for an import.

M3...nice! Ohhh dodgey decision here, your Bimmer is presumably V. reliable! Unless you can let the cat outta the bag???

 

Dunno know on this one, wouldn't like to say! If I had an M3 I would be looking to finance my 2 year old sons(if I had one!) emergency kidney operation in order to justify getting shot! So think carefully about what you are contemplating geeZer!

 

Tim

;-)