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      12-26-2019, 06:45 PM   #1
mjposner
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Any former M4 vert owners...please comment

As post says
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      12-26-2019, 06:55 PM   #2
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Not an M4 owner but I did rent one for the weekend before getting the Z4.
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      12-26-2019, 09:46 PM   #3
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mjposner View Post
As post says
Comment on... what?

I switched to an M4 cabrio after 12 years of driving Z4's and switched back a couple of weeks ago.

Despite claims by some, an M40i is not an M car just as a 4-series with lots of M options isn't an M car. It's very good and has a number of M features, but it's really not "full M" any more than my 35iS's were. They may even be a bit less "M" than E89's; one example is that there is no DCT option. There are different engine, transmission, and steering options but even with the Adaptive M Suspension you can't control that independently.

The car is much smaller than my M4, which felt like a truck after Z4's. Unlike previous Z4's, though, there is actually space for the owner's manual in the glovebox! You may well notice less shoulder and elbow room and you're not going to toss your computer bag on the "back seat". It does have significantly more and better-designed space than in your M Roadster. It's also much lighter than a 4-series, so the power-to-weight ratio is good.

One nice thing is that the top will always retract since there's nothing with which you need to fiddle in the trunk. It also works up to 30 mph.

If you had the top view cameras in an M4, they're not available in the zettie (nor are they even if you didn't have them in an M4...). There's a weird conflict between ordering the automatic parking and some driver assistance features. A zettie can be suprisingly difficult to park because it's hard to see out the back and the front air dam is even lower than on an M4, but I judged the driver assistance stuff to be of greater value. You can't get a front-view camera to look at curbs, but you can get PDC so you don't have to keep replacing or repainting air dams.

iDrive 7 is, overall, much better than ID5 or ID6, but it does have a couple of minor annoyances.

I miss anti-dazzle high beams, and I don't yet know if I can code this car for them.

Anything specific I can tell you?
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      12-27-2019, 06:08 PM   #4
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Does it feel lighter and more nimble? How much performance drop-off?

I have the top down camera but never use.

I hate the slow top up speeds
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      12-28-2019, 02:53 PM   #5
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mjposner View Post
Does it feel lighter and more nimble? How much performance drop-off?
It certainly feels lighter than the M4 or the E89 35iS's.

Nimbleness is difficult to assess in NH in the winter since I'm only willing to push things so far even with good winter tires. However, one measure would be a spot well-known to my wife and me where a road has a sudden rise topped by railroad tracks in a ~30-degree right turn. You don't have to be going very fast to end up feeling a bit airborne and end up drifting across the centerline. The M4 was the first car I've had in which I always felt fully-planted in that turn at any speed. This Z4 is the second. Steering is quick and responsive. It's got a little of the typical modern BMW slight tendency towards understeer with all the traction and stability control on. I'm not going to turn them off on public roads in the winter. It's grippier than the E85.

I guess another measure of nimbleness would be shifting. My E85 was manual, so shifting performance was on me. The E89's and M4 had DCT's which, I hate to admit, were better at shifting than I. The transmission on the G29 is pretty good, but it's no DCT. I'd say it's quick but not effortlessly instantaneous as the DCT's felt. I think most drivers wouldn't be able to distinguish it from discrete gears, and it doesn't feel at all slushy.

One factor in terms of warm-road performance is that there's no M Dynamic Mode. As noted above, I'm not going to push things on cold roads to the point where I'd be able to assess whether that makes a significant difference, but my guess is that if you are accustomed to MDM (or, better yet, Euro-MDM) you might miss it.

Straight-line acceleration isn't what you'd see in an M4, but we hardly have any straight lines around here and I probably shouldn't be going 120 mph that much. The M4 hit that speed very quickly while the Z4 takes just a bit longer to get to go-to-jail speed.

I didn't have the carbon ceramic brakes on the M4, and I think the Z4 brakes better.

I could beat my wife on the track in an M4 if she were in the zettie (in identical cars she would kick my, or most people's, asses). We don't compete on tracks any more and as most of us know nearly any BMW can readily exceed anything anyone should be attempting on public roads anyway. The M4's abilities probably exceeded my abilities as a driver by a bigger margin than the Z4, but a reasonable view of nimbleness and performance might be whether the car is capable of doing everything I demand of it while leaving me with a sense that it could do even more. The Z4 meets that standard.

Ultimately, I don't see this car as a track candidate the way one might a true M car. I'm guessing it's not the optimal vehicle for epic long highway drives either, though I'll know more about that after an upcoming thousand-mile trip. It's definitely not for hauling families or gear - I got a 60" flatscreen home in the M4 and could fit all 4 wheels/tires while leaving a seat for a passenger, either of which would be completely impossible in the Z4.

It's a quite zippy fun little car well-suited for twisty roads with a significant number of creature comforts and luxuries that make it a practical daily driver, and it costs less to buy and run than an M4.

Quote:
Originally Posted by mjposner View Post
I hate the slow top up speeds
Definitely first-world problems, but I hated not being able to raise the top as I was pulling into a parking lot or lower it as I was pulling out. I usually have the top down if it's above freezing and the sun is out, so this was a frequent annoyance. 30 mph is very reasonable and makes a noticeable difference.
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      01-01-2020, 08:41 PM   #6
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mstevens View Post
Definitely first-world problems, but I hated not being able to raise the top as I was pulling into a parking lot or lower it as I was pulling out. I usually have the top down if it's above freezing and the sun is out, so this was a frequent annoyance. 30 mph is very reasonable and makes a noticeable difference.
I have the Mods4Cars SmarTOP module on my E85 Z4 M Roadster, which allows for this functionality, at $299. They make a different model for the G29 Z4 but the price is $439.

http://www.mods4cars.com/sms/shop/in...de=view&id=172
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