Congrats on the Z4!! BMW did a great job on that retractable steel hardtop. Enjoy your ride!

 

I wish I had that! 2007 and power cloth top for me on this one!

 

Yea, that is one thing that is a bit annoying, the speed of top retraction/deploying and the fact that you can't be moving faster than about 20 MPH to raise/lower the top. I've had a few days that I had to leave the top up because I didn't want to chance having to stop on the Interstate to raise it because it started to rain (which of course it didn't) and I have had to pull over a couple of times because I thought it wouldn't rain and it did!

I do love driving this thing every day but I have had a couple of close calls with 18 wheeler tire treads (and one with a cow ) and that leaves me feeling a bit vulnerable, but Se La Garre (you may correct my French, I never took the subject)!

 

i love driving top down in the rain. you should try it sometime, if you're going at a decent enough speed, you don't get wet at all.

anyway, i love my mini. i got it in july last year and it's my only car. no problems w/ it as a daily driver at all. except that those runflats are darn expensive. i had a bulge in the right front tire and a nail in the right rear and the tires were like $300 each. which is still better than the $400 ea i got quoted at mini of mountain view...

 

The wife and I were driving home from dinner and the skies were ominous, but we gambled regardless. As we saw the first couple of drops on the windshield (but felt none ourselves, because we were at highway speed), I quickly pulled off on an exit ramp, closed the top as we decelerated down the off-ramp, and then proceeded back up the ramp on the other side of the intersection at the end of the off-ramp. Perfect timing as the skies opened up with torrential rain that caused local flash floods in town.

It is experiences such as this that make me love my Blue MINI!

 

On one of our last club rallies, we toured with a bunch of Miatas. Most if not all of them were topless most of the way. Towards the end, when we got to the restaurant meeting place it started to rain. Most Miatas had to stop while the occupants got out to put their tops up, whilst we Mini owners simply slowed down and pushed on our buttons. Gotta lobe that!

 

slow beats zero

 

Why would you stop and get out to put the top up? I had a Miata several years ago (with the pop-up headlights). I just reached back and pulled the top overhead! You could do it on the road up to about 30 mph! After that, too hard to move!

 

We had our Z4 out this past weekend. Same thing - on highway at 75 mph, rain coming down. No wetness on us since it hit the windshield. It wasn't until my wife said "use the wipers" that I got wet. Stupid me!

We made it through the rain perfectly dry!

 

I had ocassion to try this yesterday afternoon and it's mostly true! Leaving work it looked a little nasty but the WX channel radar didn't show anything so i though I would gamble. Of course I lost (why I don't go to Vegas) about halfway home on the interstate the rain let loose. I'm not a big fan of pulling on to the shoulder with the way some folks down here drive so I tried to keep the speed up as I was only about two miles from a rest stop. It worked pretty good at first (as another poster stated..DONT use the windshield wipers ) and everything was fairly dry for about 1/2 mile until the all the idiots (excuse me fellow drivers) decided they needed to jam on the brakes and drop below 20 MPH, after that I got soaked and ended up pulling off to the shoulder anyway to raise the top (still 3/4 mile from the rest stop). So if you can keep your speed up, you can keep the top down!