I've been on the hunt for a car to replace my E90 335i, and finally found a great compromise in the ZHP. I live in Chicago and I wanted an affordable performance related grocery-getter that is relatively easy to work on, has a nice interior + manual transmission and RWD, and this one seems perfect for the job. On the other hand, my E90 was probably better in many ways, but it was too nice for my needs and I really couldn't stand the turbo lag, which was very apparent to me after owning an S2000 for several years before that.

My ZHP is an MY04, with 114K (very clean car). I am the 3rd owner of this vehicle and the PO drove it a total of 20K miles in 7 years. He purchased it as a CPO from the dealer and before that, I was told the first owner used it for long highway commutes and therefore, most of the miles on it are highway miles. However, my ZHP did not come without issues and within a week of owning the car, I discovered quite a few already ...

1) Broken thermostat which occasionally opened up --> Replaced
2) Coolant leak from lower radiator housing sensor --> Replaced O-ring
3) Buzzing rear deck speaker --> need to replace
4) 1-2mm play in the rear left rotor --> I suspect it's the $!wheel bearing!$
5) A and C pillar falling apart
6) No aux input --> Installed OEM in ashtray

#4 concerns me the most since it'll be pretty expensive to fix. The tire shop discovered it after swapping out the summer only tires to all-seasons. When driving the car, there's no whirring noise or popping sounds to hint that a bearing is going bad, so this one really caught me off guard.

The car is great, but I hope there aren't too many other issues with it.