so... yeah...

A wonderful unexpected snowstorm arrived just in time for the morning commute. I was driving slow (about 50mph) on the freeway... hit an area that hadn't been plowed & the car in front of me panicked & slammed on his brakes. To avoid hitting him I had to swerve & hit my brakes.... (which makes your car go sideways when doing so). I tried to correct but with zero traction, didn't do any good. I smacked the concrete wall right on the front left corner of my car going about 25mph. Hood popped up a lil... then I realized... damn, I got the title on Friday & haven't put the car on my insurance. So with a buckled hood, and the inner fender dragging on the tire, got off the freeway & limped her back home @ 20mph... took me 2 hours to get home. Hopefully no one reported me leaving the scene of an accident. DAMMIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! poor bimmer, lets hope nothings bent beyond repair..

 

yeah... it is. The steering is effed up... left strut tower crunched a bit. I'd need to replace:

-hood
-bumper
-headlight
-fender
-who knows which suspension components
-straighten the frame
-etc


I'm prolly gunna part it out.

I'll post pics tonight.

 

well, i guess there is no point in calling your insurance co. since they would have totaled it anyway..

 

Sorry Dude! Glad you're OK though...


Rod.

 

Nismo,
In Georgia you have 30 days to add a vehicle to your policy. If you have full coverage on a policy already, you are covered. I would check that out to see how long you have to add a vehicle to your policy after purchase. You may be covered, of course depending what you paid for the car, it may cost more in increased premiums than the car is worth. I would check it out.

 

man im sorry to hear about your car. but im glad your not hurt..

 

that really sucks man. but hey, at least it wasnt the z.

 

Here's some pics:

 

that taint bad..... but TAKE THAT GERMAN "perfection" ENGINEERING ... lol bmw gets on my nerves. but i still hurt for you man no matter what kind of car a crash always is a kick in the nuts. nismo... this is why you should have a DD car that you odnt care about and is easy and cheap to fix... for days like this.

 

nice.... now if you are going to part it out keep the drive train to swap into a beater z. I have never heard of any one putting a bmw engine into a Z.

 

its not an M3 engine though... so i say part it all. lol...

 

Dude, **** that. Its totaly salvagable. I see **** worse than this ALL THE TIME at the shop and within a few days they roll out of the shop looking like nothing ever happened. If you were local i would say bring it on through and we could put it on the rack. Dont part it homie. What did you pay for it? Glad to see you're safe and nobody else was involved.

 

It really doesn't look that bad... Of course without insurance, it could be a bit pricey to fix... Still, it's not that bad.


Rod.

 

If it were any other (non-german) car... I'd be fine with fixing it. But I cringe just thinking of the parts prices (hood, bumper supports, bumper cover, headlight, corner light, fender, control arm, etc)... easily $2k in parts. I bought the damn thing for $2.5k.

 

can we start making list's of what we want?

 

I'm debating what to do. You want something from it? If I did part it, I'd just list everything on 318ti.org & ebay. I dunno if I can do that tho. I might just try to sell it for $1k or $1.5k to someone that wants to rebuild it... or if I can find an E36 in a junk yard, I'll just rip out all the left front side & install it on mine. Ah the beauty of bolt together bodies.

 

if nothing works for you, then ill make a small list.

 

send the whole car to me, ill fix it and have a bimmer fer myself!! i would fix it and sell it. you got it cheap so why not? i want the hid units there my other list is done, whole car first, hid's second!!

 

Finally got up enough nerve to look at the car & ripped apart the front today. Eh... it's not that bad. Good ol BMW designed a pretty study car! I will need to pull the left bumper shock to the left front as it (along with the end frame) are angled inward to the right. Just chain it to another car & pull!

 

ah, not bad at all, and you were gonna part it out. dang, i guess no hid's for me. any junk yard around you got parts, or maybe ebay?

 

One "Euro" junk yard about 60 miles from me. They have one E36 that's been pretty much dismantled already. There's a local company called Keystone that sells aftermarket body parts for cheap. Prolly just order my parts from them & add a couple extra coats of primer to make up for weak aftermarket e-coat.

 

as was said above some insurance companies give u a grace period if you already have insurance with them. thats how it was on the Z when we bought it. Sorry to hear that tho

 

Doesn't look too bad kid... Ya got lucky. I'm sure you can fix 'er up purdy again.


Rod.

 

Understood, and under more normal circumstances I would prolly go that route. I just don't want to risk my insurance going up, having them total / salvage the car, have any kind of "investigation," etc. I can fix it myself & actually would rather KNOW how well it's been fixed, than think some goofy *** highschool body guy fixed it ( I know... as I was one once ).