A few readers might remember some posts that I made last May and June after my beautiful '87 325is got wrecked. That was four months ago this week. The car had been sitting in the back of my shop for the last 2 1/2 months on three wheels and a jack stand. But there is good news. The car will be picked up by a roll back and taken to the body shop for repair this week.
I don't know about you, but car wrecks are rare events in my life. I was unprepared for the decisions that had to be made after my pride and joy was almost totaled. Allow me to share with you some of the things that I have learned. But first, let me give a very brief background.
I had purchased the car from a dealer in Miami and the car needed a lot of work, but was a rust free E30. Except for a leaking main rear seal, the engine was strong and sound. It had been a one owner car and had been neglected by a loving owner who didn't do any of his own repairs. It needed a lot of work, but was worth it. I spent well over 100 hours refurbishing the car and put much more into the car than its value would warrant. But I didn't care about value. I grew to love the car.
Last May, I was taking it for the first drive after completion of the restoration process. A few details remained, but the car ready to drive. A tandem axle dump truck coming at me from the other direction blew its front left tire and the driver lost control. He came into my lane at about 60 mph, leaving me seconds to save my life. I jumped into his empty lane and attempted to pass him on his right. Unfortunately, he swerved back into his lane before going off the road. The right rear tire of his truck crushed my right quarter panel and tore the right rear wheel out of the car. If I had been two feet more to the left, I would have driven home, but if I had been one or two seconds further back, I might be dead.
So here are a few things that I know.
1. Because I had the radio off, two hands on the wheel and two eyes on the road, I was able to take advantage of every second, when every second counted. As soon as the tire blew, I was looking for options. If I had been playing with my cell phone, I would be dead.
2. Accidents like this happen quickly. They come out of nowhere and end within a minute. I was totally unprepared to make the first decisions required of me after the accident was over. A rollback appeared and I hadn't considered where the car should go. I had no idea what body shop would be prepared to take the car.
I sent the car to a body shop near my house, without knowing if they were suited to work on the car. I should have taken the car to my garage for storage.
3. If you have a cell phone, start taking pictures of the accident scene. Take pictures of the tire skid marks, where the involved vehicles ended up after the crash and what they looked like. If the other driver was at fault, his insurance should pay. Pictures may be critical in supporting your description of events.
4. Get collector car insurance with agreed value, if your use of the car conforms to the requirements for collector coverage. In my case, an '87 325is had an NADA value of about $5,600 and a Hagerty value of about $17,500. I had $22K in my car with agreed value to match. The high agreed value is all that kept my car from being totaled. If I had regular coverage, I might have received less than $5K.
5. If the economics say that you should junk your beloved car, junk it. Before my accident, I had attended to all of the little restoration details on my car. Because I planned to keep the car for many years, I replaced every rubber part and anything worn or questionable at considerable expense. The damage is very severe, but localized. The car is very rebuildable, but the cost is estimated at $17 thousand. The insurance company would have totaled the car and given me about $20K, but my love for the car wouldn't allow me to send it to the bone yard. I should have junked it.
6. Finding the right body shop. My car sat in the first body shop parking lot for six weeks while I debated with the shop foreman. Many shops are oriented to work on new cars. The late model cars come in and get quickly repaired or totaled and go back out the door. 30 year old cars require a special kind of shop. If my car had been new, it would have been totaled and the shop foreman couldn't see my car as rebuildable, despite the classic car coverage. He was afraid to touch it. So it sat in the lot until I brought it home on a rollback.
It took a long time and a lot of hard work to find a shop that wanted my car. There are small shops that I thought would want it, but the job was too big for them. Big shops that didn't want classics. This part was much more difficult that I ever imagined.
7. Part availability may be a problem. Fortunately, E30 parts are readily available. My body shop immediately ordered the new quarter panel from BMW. The part had a current part number, but it was on back order. We waited and waited for the quarter, until I found that BMW had discontinued the part after we ordered it and never bothered to tell us.
8. The first adjuster estimate is just the beginning. He just took a quick look at the car and underestimated the damage. His first estimate was $6K in damages, but it grew to over $16K over time.
9. Get involved. Inspect the car very carefully yourself. Look at parts schematics and identify all of the parts that the adjuster left out of the estimate. Make sure that no parts get left out of the estimate. Make sure that the body shop recognizes the additional repairs that you want made and that you both agree on the scope.
10. Negotiate a careful written agreement with the body shop for large repair jobs. The agreement should carefully identify all of the parts and all of the work to be done. It should describe how changes in work scope will be approved and how you will be kept in the loop. You should have the opportunity to approve all price increases that the insurance company fails to approve.
The work on my car is about to begin and I'm sure that I will learn more hard lessons before this is over. These are things that we never want to think about. But when your classic BMW gets wrecked, you will have a lot of important decisions to make and you don't want to get it wrong. I hope that you never need to learn anything about such things thru personal experience.
I don't know about you, but car wrecks are rare events in my life. I was unprepared for the decisions that had to be made after my pride and joy was almost totaled. Allow me to share with you some of the things that I have learned. But first, let me give a very brief background.
I had purchased the car from a dealer in Miami and the car needed a lot of work, but was a rust free E30. Except for a leaking main rear seal, the engine was strong and sound. It had been a one owner car and had been neglected by a loving owner who didn't do any of his own repairs. It needed a lot of work, but was worth it. I spent well over 100 hours refurbishing the car and put much more into the car than its value would warrant. But I didn't care about value. I grew to love the car.
Last May, I was taking it for the first drive after completion of the restoration process. A few details remained, but the car ready to drive. A tandem axle dump truck coming at me from the other direction blew its front left tire and the driver lost control. He came into my lane at about 60 mph, leaving me seconds to save my life. I jumped into his empty lane and attempted to pass him on his right. Unfortunately, he swerved back into his lane before going off the road. The right rear tire of his truck crushed my right quarter panel and tore the right rear wheel out of the car. If I had been two feet more to the left, I would have driven home, but if I had been one or two seconds further back, I might be dead.
So here are a few things that I know.
1. Because I had the radio off, two hands on the wheel and two eyes on the road, I was able to take advantage of every second, when every second counted. As soon as the tire blew, I was looking for options. If I had been playing with my cell phone, I would be dead.
2. Accidents like this happen quickly. They come out of nowhere and end within a minute. I was totally unprepared to make the first decisions required of me after the accident was over. A rollback appeared and I hadn't considered where the car should go. I had no idea what body shop would be prepared to take the car.
I sent the car to a body shop near my house, without knowing if they were suited to work on the car. I should have taken the car to my garage for storage.
3. If you have a cell phone, start taking pictures of the accident scene. Take pictures of the tire skid marks, where the involved vehicles ended up after the crash and what they looked like. If the other driver was at fault, his insurance should pay. Pictures may be critical in supporting your description of events.
4. Get collector car insurance with agreed value, if your use of the car conforms to the requirements for collector coverage. In my case, an '87 325is had an NADA value of about $5,600 and a Hagerty value of about $17,500. I had $22K in my car with agreed value to match. The high agreed value is all that kept my car from being totaled. If I had regular coverage, I might have received less than $5K.
5. If the economics say that you should junk your beloved car, junk it. Before my accident, I had attended to all of the little restoration details on my car. Because I planned to keep the car for many years, I replaced every rubber part and anything worn or questionable at considerable expense. The damage is very severe, but localized. The car is very rebuildable, but the cost is estimated at $17 thousand. The insurance company would have totaled the car and given me about $20K, but my love for the car wouldn't allow me to send it to the bone yard. I should have junked it.
6. Finding the right body shop. My car sat in the first body shop parking lot for six weeks while I debated with the shop foreman. Many shops are oriented to work on new cars. The late model cars come in and get quickly repaired or totaled and go back out the door. 30 year old cars require a special kind of shop. If my car had been new, it would have been totaled and the shop foreman couldn't see my car as rebuildable, despite the classic car coverage. He was afraid to touch it. So it sat in the lot until I brought it home on a rollback.
It took a long time and a lot of hard work to find a shop that wanted my car. There are small shops that I thought would want it, but the job was too big for them. Big shops that didn't want classics. This part was much more difficult that I ever imagined.
7. Part availability may be a problem. Fortunately, E30 parts are readily available. My body shop immediately ordered the new quarter panel from BMW. The part had a current part number, but it was on back order. We waited and waited for the quarter, until I found that BMW had discontinued the part after we ordered it and never bothered to tell us.
8. The first adjuster estimate is just the beginning. He just took a quick look at the car and underestimated the damage. His first estimate was $6K in damages, but it grew to over $16K over time.
9. Get involved. Inspect the car very carefully yourself. Look at parts schematics and identify all of the parts that the adjuster left out of the estimate. Make sure that no parts get left out of the estimate. Make sure that the body shop recognizes the additional repairs that you want made and that you both agree on the scope.
10. Negotiate a careful written agreement with the body shop for large repair jobs. The agreement should carefully identify all of the parts and all of the work to be done. It should describe how changes in work scope will be approved and how you will be kept in the loop. You should have the opportunity to approve all price increases that the insurance company fails to approve.
The work on my car is about to begin and I'm sure that I will learn more hard lessons before this is over. These are things that we never want to think about. But when your classic BMW gets wrecked, you will have a lot of important decisions to make and you don't want to get it wrong. I hope that you never need to learn anything about such things thru personal experience.
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