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How I bought a new BMW Z4: A dream come true

6th August 2024, 11:29 by Utkarsh Chaudhary

I did a lot of research before finalising this sports car. I also looked at the Jaguar F Type and Porsche 718 Boxster.

BHPian rishi_kapoor recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

It all starts with a dream, as a kid I always dreamt about owning a convertible sports car. In my dreams it was a blue, Porsche! Well, you got to start somewhere, isn’t it? So here is my story…

I could have picked a sports car a few years earlier but the guilt of a 2 seater car which will be exclusively used by me kept me away. To add, convertibles are always looked down on as unpractical in Indian conditions and too low a stance really makes it just a showcar in the garage! So, it took a while more.

My choices:

With my budget of 1.25 to 1.5 cr the choices were really limited. I looked at the Jaguar F Type, Porsche 718 Boxster and of course Z4. I also considered an entry-level Carrera but it was too out of my budget. F Type was ruled out as it became obsolete and was not available in India. Tried Porsche 718 but 2.0 litre engine was not the only deterrent, the options list made it to the 2 Cr category.

I did a lot of research before closing on Z4. It turned out to be the most practical sports car, it had a ground clearance which wouldn't get hurt by every speed breaker, BMW reliability (yes, I am a BMW Fanboy!), B58 is a rock solid engine which can take mods to 500+ BHP in future, G29 LCI looks really expansive and stunning!

Due to some other priorities, Z4 took a back seat for purchase in 2026. But my belief is that you don’t buy cars, they choose to come into your life and that is exactly what happened in my case.

It was a very routine call to Krishna BMW for my 1250 GS’s service and by sheer mistake I called Preeti (Sales head at Krishna BMW Cars) instead of the service head for Krishna BMW Motorrad. She spoke with me and mentioned that there is one Z4 in thundernight metallic colour with almost the configuration that I was looking for! With the current waiting of 1 year for Z4, this was a drooling offer.

Spoke with my dear friend Rohit Paradkar who is also the assistant editor of Overdrive magazine and a fellow rider. He jokingly said, “Rishi if not now then when? Get a sports car while you can still flex to get in its cabin.” It was enough for me to jump the fence. My spouse also supported saying that it’s time that you reward yourself. So I was all set!

3 days later on 4th of July, less than a week after my call, I found myself at Chandigarh BMW dealership taking the keys of my new shining Z4! Purchase experience was amazing with absolutely no hassles.

Boy! I was mesmerised by the way it looked in person. With a lot of nervousness, I drove it out of Chandigarh's thick traffic to Noida, 400 odd KMs of drive really got me a lot of confidence. Pop and bangs of the exhaust are sheer head turners if the stunning beauty doesn’t turn your head.

Here are some pictures I took in the basement after reaching home:

I will not talk much about the tech specs but it has a 3 litre B58 M tuned engine, 340 BHP (Europe spec, US spec is 384 BHP), M Sports LS Differential, M Gearbox, M sports brake, M light alloys and M adaptive suspension. First addition will be a RaceChip to get output to 420 BHP.

The Drive

The drive is just amazing, it has so much torque at hand that even at the slightest acceleration or normal crawl it tends to slip the rear wheels. It’s really difficult to drive it within speed limits as it really hides the real speed if you don’t look at the speedometer. It doesn’t take long to get used to it but it's W-I-D-E, I mean really wide. Long bonnet which helps keep BMW's famous 50-50 weight distribution is really something too. But this car has true BMW genes that are slowly changing (look at the new 5 LWB), it truly drives like a go-cart and controls are German precise.

The PPF Story

I never really believed in PPF, for me it’s always the elbow grease that keeps a car shining. But lately, with no control over how your daily car wash guy cleans your car, I thought about getting PPF on this Z4. I did my research and this was the most confusing stuff, much much more complicated than actually deciding on a sports car! There are tons of detailing studios that are offering you their white-labelled Chinese PPFs. There are fakes of good brands all over the place!

I finally brought down my choices to Xpel, Llumar and AVERY Dennison. All 10-year warranty, top-of-the-line PPFs. The other consideration was the quality of the installer and installation. It really needed a lot of courage to let your brand-new car undergo this, I was really really very nervous. I knew a neighbour of mine who owns a detailing studio and I have seen her grow into a reputed detailer in the last 9 years. But still, I had my doubts. I asked her to demonstrate her results by doing one of my smaller cars Polo GT, I liked her work and gave her a go-ahead very reluctantly and nervously.

I finally chose the AVERY Dennison extreme series, it had the best construction in terms of layers based on my research. It has a factory-coated graphene coating on top of PPF film that adds gloss and additional protection. The owner of the detailing studio assured me that for all high-end cars, AVERY sends an installer from their head office and doesn’t allow local installers, though she insisted that her installer was better.

I also got a bumper scrape guard (Sliplo) from the US so that uneven speed bumps etc don’t hurt my bumpers. Finally, the result was amazing, will share some pictures clicked at the detailing studio later in the thread.

The way ahead:

I am enjoying the drive, it is my daily drive to the office. Suddenly my 630i has a lot of respect, it feels like a carpet as compared.

Jokes apart, Z4 is a dream come true, Z4 is a charm and I can’t wait to take it to track. Track is really where it belongs, for now, I am just trying to really drive it within moderate limits till 1500 KMs. Few rounds of Yamuna Expressway should do the trick.

I found it to be the most practical everyday sports car, it is reasonably comfortable, the top takes 10 seconds to cover you, ground clearance is ample for most Indian roads, so far no issues whatsoever in the last 450 Kms of drive.

Thanks for reading my story, I hope to add more to this thread as my ownership matures beyond kilometres. Happy to answer any queries you have, looking forward to your comments, signing off for now, enjoy some visuals: