You've gotten great feedback so far from my fellow e89ers, as I expected. I'll add a couple of thoughts.
To follow the example of @scootr, I bought my 2011 35i (Deep Sea Blue over Ivory) about a year and a half ago. It was a 1-owner and had around 50K miles on it and was in great shape. It spent its life in Ohio, but was strictly a summer car and had been stored "properly" in winter. Its my daily driver and I've loved every minute I've had it. Some of the things I looked for and that I'd recommend were:
1. Make sure the one you find has complete service records. You need to make sure that whoever owned it was religious about maintenance, because that's way more likely to prevent the ugly and costly problems that can arise.
2. Make sure all recall work has been done. I think there were 4 recall items for my year/model. If someone neglected that, what else did they neglect?
3. Get the Carfax. Obviously, no accidents, plus avoid one with lots of owners. That's not always a problem, but really why even go there?
4. Use a "VIN decoder" type of online utility to make sure you know exactly how the car was optioned.
5. If possible, get some firsthand input as to how the car was driven and cared for. Was it driven in winter in snowy areas? If stored in winter, was it stored properly? Did the person "track" the car? Did they baby it? Personally, I try to avoid both. I don't really want a car someone has thrashed (though I get why you'd want to!) nor do I want a car that was never exercised as it should be.
To a couple of your other questions, regarding going to a non-staggered tire setup, I don't have firsthand experience. What I've heard from folks who did non-staggered is that you'll naturally lose some handling, but that may not concern you. I've kept mine with staggered 19" run flats. That does make for a pretty harsh ride, but honestly I never feel beat up by it. That said, a wonderfully generous friend of mine gifted me a set of brand new staggered 18" Continental Extreme Contact DW Tuned non-run-flats. I'm in the market now for rims and am anxious to see the difference NRFs make. Luckily, I live where I can run summer tires year-round.
I think CPO is a good way to go for peace of mind, but personally I wouldn't make that a hard requirement as long as you do your homework. And -as mentioned above - there is the extended warranty option.
Finally, from your initial comments, it sounds like you are considering one of the models below the 35i and 35is. If you're not interested in the highest performance configurations, I get that. What I will note is that the e89 35i & 35is models have the N54 engine which is an awesome engine performance-wise, and very reliable if maintained. The N54 won five straight International Engine of the Year awards and three straight Ward's 10 Best Engines awards. It's only shortcoming was its high pressure fuel pump, but that's one of the recall items I mentioned earlier. A diligent owner will have had that recall work completed.
Best of luck with your search and we're looking forward to seeing what you find! And welcome to the club.
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