Manual Transmission

In my opinion it is worth the trouble to find a manual transmission car. Everyone (almost) wants an automatic these days,

When I was looking for mine I remember a local BMW dealer telling me that the people who bought the Z4 were doctors and lawyers who bought the car to play golf on the weekends and didn’t want a manual transmission. He said they are a hard sell and his dealership would not want one. Needless to say I found a brand new 2011 at the end of 2012 that still had the clearance sign on the car and was never sold. It was at another dealership that I found on Autotrader. The dealership first told me it was sold, they did not know that they had it in their inventory. I had a funny feeling the car was still there and decided to reach out to another salesman. Still have it, 2011 manual with every option you could think of. Beautiful, black on black. Would never consider anything other than a manual. Still have my first car 69 Corvette, manual, daily driver Jeep Wrangler, manual. Manuals are very reliable, simple and the gear box seldom goes, only the clutch. I heard the E89 Z4 with the automatic/ manual paddle shifters had problems, very expensive to fix. When I was looking all I wanted was a non turbo motor and manual transmission. I didn’t care if the car was yellow without any options, just had to have that combination. In my opinion 2011 was the last year for the best Z4. After 2011 the base motor was a 4cyl turbo.

Just submitted something, that’s not my screen name.

Took me 4 months of searching to find one with a proper manual. I do like the auto for the e89 z4 but its never been my thing. The auto is faster shifting than you or I will ever do but less connection to the car which is what I wanted. When I was searching for it, i was told that only about 2-5% of them sold in North America were sold in Manual so finding them used is a challenge in itself.