A Little Side Trip

This is the convergence of two separate threads in Mary Ellen's and my automotive lives. Perhaps the more pressing  thread belongs to Mary Ellen - she has a leased 2011 BMW 328i xDrive sedan that we have to give back in about a month. That has occasioned much discussion concerning her next car, perhaps more than she wished she had to endure. It was out of that search that I wound up trading my BMW 128i convertible for a brand new VW GTI Driver's Edition - I was looking for her a car, and somehow...

The other thread is my own desire to have a convertible every summer, and to minimize the expense associated with that. My grand plan is to keep a convertible either 1.5 or 2.5 years, buying it when there is snow on the ground (plenty of THAT this year), and selling it in early summer, before the 4th of July. That scheme theoretically minimizes the purchase price (buying when only a fool wants a convertible) and maximizes the sale price (selling when every fool wants one).

I've done pretty well with the first part - I bought that 128i in January, 2011 in Virginia and drove it home in a snowstorm. Getting rid of them at the right time is harder, because I want to keep enjoying them in the good weather! It was October, 2013 when I traded the 128i away, so I took a bit of a hit on the sale price. I just called it a surcharge to allow me to enjoy one more summer in the car.

So, back to Mary Ellen's search. We had decided that, if possible, we would try to get something a bit less extravagant than her current BMW, and to purchase instead of lease. We talked about a number of possibilities, and she drove my GTI and liked it. She finally said, "Get me the same thing you have."  OK, I can do that, but did you know that the Driver's Edition only comes in black or white? Neither of us wants a black car, so we were looking at having identical cars. Kinda weird.

That's when John Zimmerman chimed in and said, "Just give her your car, and go buy something else." Well, I can do that, if I can figure out what to buy. My initial "plan" was to buy a small fleet of junkers, and hope that at least one of them was running at any given time. There would be a 4x4 pickup, a cheap convertible and my Z3 Coupe, assuming I ever get it back together. I even went to look at a cheap 4x4 Ranger pickup - it wouldn't start on the day I was there. Eventually, I decided I didn't have to drive junk, just something that was lots cheaper than a brand new car.

I was looking at MINI Convertibles, and everybody I talked to said, "Run away! Run away!" It is astonishing how bad the repair record of those cars can be. BMW (parent company of MINI) should be thoroughly ashamed. Indeed, I met a man today (foreshadowing: a Lexus salesman) who bought one as a project, and the first thing he had to replace was the engine! Even doing all the work himself, he said that the car just buried him with expense - in some cases, having to replace the same part more than once. He finally sold it.

I also looked at a couple of other "city convertibles" since I do so much city driving - the Fiat 500 and the Smart FourTwo convertible. Both also have abysmal repair records. Can't anybody make a reliable car anymore?

That's when John chimed in again: "That BMW Z4 you had was a great looking car - you ought to get another one of those." So, wine glass in hand, I started searching the web, and found a gem: a one-owner, 56,000 mile, totally pristine 2005 BMW Z4, at a Lexus dealership in Wilmington, Delaware. It was priced very attractively, about $3,000 under Kelly Blue Book retail.  Even better, it was in a real color (Merlot) instead of the 17 shades of silver/gray that most BMWs wear.

Since John was the instigator of all this, I picked him up at 9:15 this morning and we made the 1.5 hour drive to Wilmington. The car was as advertised, and I bought it!  Even drove it home part of the way with the top down - it was 58 F (14.4 C) which is plenty warm enough if the sun is shining, which it was.

Here's proof that I bought the car with snow on the ground, although we have had a huge amount of melt in the last two days. Now we'll see if I can make myself sell it some subsequent June. Congratulations to Mary Ellen - she now has a nearly new GTI, and it all happened on her birthday! I hope she lets me drive it some - I really liked that car.

BTW, I'm still in the market for a 4x4 pickup... or maybe, continuing the BMW and VW theme, one of these: