Sad news: my daily driver 318is seems to have bit the dust. It was parked facing uphill on a local street while I was in a meeting, and a Dodge Ram w/ trailer of firewood couldn't quite make it up the icy road, slid back from the top, and ended up smacking into my e30!
I've been fighting with the driver's insurance for the past month, and finally go to the point where they were not willing to budge on valuation without getting lawyers involved. I fought a good battle though, and got a reasonable amount of money back - and bought the car back from them (now with a salvage title).
So, I had the car delivered to my house today, and am just now taking stock of the damage. Because it will always have a salvage title, it does not seem worth it to repair the car, knowing how low salvage vehicle values are. At the same time, there are lots of good exterior and interior parts & upgrades, the drivetrain runs great, and it would be really sad to condemn it to death by a thousand salvage pickers.
I've had an e30 as daily driver for 10 years now, and am starting to think that this is a good time to try something else on, for instance a BMW 2002. But, I would certainly not be disappointed to keep driving an e30...
So, it seems there are four paths forward:
1. Repair the damage mostly by myself (I don't know how to weld, but could learn), try my hand at painting it myself as well, and get it back on the road. I'm really not sure how much needs to be replaced other than the obviously crunched-up things we see in the photos. The engine still fires up, and all the door panels, etc. are all exactly as they were previously. So, I don't think there's much in the way of nasty frame damage, but I also don't know what to look for.
2. Attempt to sell off all the good bits - interior, exterior, mechanical, and try to make some of the value back along the way. I really don't have time to do a thorough job of this, but could probably deal with the most obvious 15-20 items (seats, dash, diff, engine, trans, etc)
3. Find someone who wants to fix it themselves and sell the whole car. If someone wanted to make a low-budget rally-X or HPDE vehicle, they could probably sell most of the cosmetic upgrades and easily fund the necessary repairs. I suppose this is the ideal scenario, but I don't know how much the car is worth at this point... any ideas?
4. Keep the car for awhile until I can either find a tired but straight e30 chassis and swap over whatever I can, or purchase a BMW 2002 project and attempt to swap in the m42 + 5sp from my 318is. This seems like a fun idea, and that swap has been done before - but that's quite a bit more involved than any automotive project that I've taken on. Lots of obvious plus-sides to this scenario, but i'm not sure my wife would like the multiple disassembled BMWs in our yard!
So, I guess i'm partly just venting, but also wondering how bad the damage looks to you guys, and what the smart path forward might be from some other perspectives.
*edit* updated pics
I've been fighting with the driver's insurance for the past month, and finally go to the point where they were not willing to budge on valuation without getting lawyers involved. I fought a good battle though, and got a reasonable amount of money back - and bought the car back from them (now with a salvage title).
So, I had the car delivered to my house today, and am just now taking stock of the damage. Because it will always have a salvage title, it does not seem worth it to repair the car, knowing how low salvage vehicle values are. At the same time, there are lots of good exterior and interior parts & upgrades, the drivetrain runs great, and it would be really sad to condemn it to death by a thousand salvage pickers.
I've had an e30 as daily driver for 10 years now, and am starting to think that this is a good time to try something else on, for instance a BMW 2002. But, I would certainly not be disappointed to keep driving an e30...
So, it seems there are four paths forward:
1. Repair the damage mostly by myself (I don't know how to weld, but could learn), try my hand at painting it myself as well, and get it back on the road. I'm really not sure how much needs to be replaced other than the obviously crunched-up things we see in the photos. The engine still fires up, and all the door panels, etc. are all exactly as they were previously. So, I don't think there's much in the way of nasty frame damage, but I also don't know what to look for.
2. Attempt to sell off all the good bits - interior, exterior, mechanical, and try to make some of the value back along the way. I really don't have time to do a thorough job of this, but could probably deal with the most obvious 15-20 items (seats, dash, diff, engine, trans, etc)
3. Find someone who wants to fix it themselves and sell the whole car. If someone wanted to make a low-budget rally-X or HPDE vehicle, they could probably sell most of the cosmetic upgrades and easily fund the necessary repairs. I suppose this is the ideal scenario, but I don't know how much the car is worth at this point... any ideas?
4. Keep the car for awhile until I can either find a tired but straight e30 chassis and swap over whatever I can, or purchase a BMW 2002 project and attempt to swap in the m42 + 5sp from my 318is. This seems like a fun idea, and that swap has been done before - but that's quite a bit more involved than any automotive project that I've taken on. Lots of obvious plus-sides to this scenario, but i'm not sure my wife would like the multiple disassembled BMWs in our yard!
So, I guess i'm partly just venting, but also wondering how bad the damage looks to you guys, and what the smart path forward might be from some other perspectives.
*edit* updated pics
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