Newbie from california: New to BMW and looking to get an E46. please look at this e46 and give me some input please. ty!

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Originally Posted by tkundhi

Book value means nothing when it comes to the ZHPs.

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I totally disagree. The ZHP is not a collector's car, nor is it anything special by any means. I find there to be absolutely zero reason why a ZHP with 75k miles (for example) should sell for almost the same price today that I bought my ZHP for over four years ago with the same mileage. I bought mine for $18k at 75k miles, and I wasn't able to find ANY ZHP's anywhere in the country for less than $17k with that kind of mileage at the time. I just paid the extra $1k as a convenience to myself to not have to fly around the country for one.

It is now 4 years later. Time doesn't make cars better, it makes them worse. If it's not a collector's car, why would I pay that for the same car that's older? Book value takes age into account, and whether or not the car is a collector's item. Let's face it; our ZHPs are old.

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I have yet to find anyone( KBB, Edmunds, TruCar) actually tracking values for the cars specifically. So book does not reflect the market.

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I haven't checked Edmunds or TruCar, but KBB most definitely tracks ZHP values versus the standard 330. I looked up a sample car and it gave a value of approximately 3k over a standard 330. You have to select "Performance Package" as an option.

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A well maintained ZHP in excellent condition will bring $15k no problem.

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Only if the mileage is lower than average. Nobody's going to pay that for a car with average mileage. Lower than average mileage = small percentage of ZHPs.

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So the right combo of seller, car and buyer could definitely bring $16k - $18k.

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$18k is the equivalent of the people who pay near $30k for an E46 M3; these aren't typical buyers and cannot be used to estimate what ZHPs in general are worth. There are value ranges, and there are certain values that ZHPs cannot exceed without it being considered overpriced. $18-19k generally is way overpriced for a ZHP unless it has 20,000 miles and is in excellent condition.

Automatic

BP, we're going to have to agree to disagree.

I can tell you for a fact you can't buy an excellent car for the prices that KBB, Edmunds and Black Book list. Maybe I should say it is very difficult not impossible. You touched on the reasons why. These cars are now 8-11 years old. The average mileage generally well over 100k. 60k - 80k mile cars are not as common and yes the low mileage cars <50k are rare. These data companies use models to determine the value based upon the data they have. For the average car this works but for many specialty cars it doesn't. I'm not talking collectibles. Collectibles are tracked by other companies and generally speaking you can find good reliable data.

I personally know of 6 ZHPs purchased in the last 18 months. 4 where 70-80k cars and the average price was $14.9k. Of the other two, one was a $11k car (100k miles) that has since had 3k+ worth of work and the last was over $16k (<70k miles).

Here is another thing to consider. And for clarity I'm not saying this is you but it is a generalization of what I've witnessed when people discuss prices online. There is an emotional element when people often discuss car prices online. They generally like to feel they got a good deal and nice car. But this is very subjective. On another forum there was a similar discussion discussing ZHP pricing. One guy claimed a car was way overpriced. He paid a couple thousand less for the excellent condition ZHP he owned. The problem is the definition of excellent. This guy had multiple posts in the recent weeks asking for input various issues; belt failures, warning lights, etc. Nothing major but not what I would expect form an excellent condition car. And therein lies the debate.

For me an excellent condition car has no issues, current maintenance with records, only OE or BMW parts, no accidents, and minimal cosmetic wear. These cars do exist. They are not unicorns. My experience tell me these cars do sell for more than the prices listed in the guides. Today low milage ZHPs like this sell fast if priced at $16k or less.

I think we can agree that a car is worth what the buyer and seller agree it is worth.

t.

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FIGHT!




as previously stated..........get a PPI. REGARDLESS. no ifs/ands/butts (big butts)



only way to push you closer to a buy or further away from it. good luck with the hunt. on "paper" it looks decent, gotta dig deeper though.