Quite the Unfortunate Event...

[Tacks 4 Snacks]

Hey everyone! I'm kinda new around and haven't really posted much, but my time creepin' around these parts has inspired me to post about a recent misfortune of mine.

Let me start off with a pic of my e39:
http://i1089.photobucket.com/albums/i346/tacksforsnacks7/thosedays.jpg
She may have been pretty much stock, but she was mine. And i took care of her because she was my baby.

Until one day a woman decided to hit me, and lie her ass off on the police report. The fact that i was a teenager gave me basically no leverage and ended with me at fault. I am left with this:
http://i1089.photobucket.com/albums/i346/tacksforsnacks7/fucked-1.jpg
Total and utter fuck-ness. Not to mention that this happened on the first day of my summer vacation. Thankfully it was not totalled in the wreck.

The insurance guy is scheduled to come out to see it on Tuesday, so i plan to keep a mini build thread here for anyone who may be interested in seeing an unfortunate event hopefully turn out positive for a teenager with little funds, but alot of heart for his BMW.

Moral support and/or personal anecdotes about situations like this are of course welcome.

Thanks for viewing!

[hollyw00d10]

sucks man.
+ 1 for dirty jers

[GWerks]

Sorry to hear man, good luck!

[denyo77]

best of the luck, man! I'd love to have an e39.

[Tacks 4 Snacks]

Thanks for the support guys.

Just got this pic sent to me by the body shop guy. Its gonna pretty much stay like this til Tuesday.
http://i1089.photobucket.com/albums/i346/tacksforsnacks7/nomnomnom.jpg
Their gonna want to find use parts to fix it up, so we will have a tough job convincing the insurance agency that it was basically pristine, and an equal replacement would be new parts.

[SyN]

seriously doesnt look that bad. new fender, and bumper and all the fun stuff behind it.... if the shop is good you can probably keep the hood. looks like it will need some suspension parts also. but its hard to tell. Consider yourself lucky. My wife was t-boned(passenger side.) in her e36 that was mint back in feb.... only 80k miles on it. she walked away with only shaken up but car was completely totaled. hers was alpine over beige also.

[frey328is]

my car got totaled the 2nd day I was back from college for summer vacation. ended up good for me after a shitload of work parting out my old car. Looks like this can be fixed easily. If you found an alpine e39 parts car you could pull all the stuff you need off of it.

[335guy]

That really sucks. Back in the summer of '98 I had a similar thing happen. Don't let it ruin your summer! Mine involved drinking so it ruined the whole month of june with court dates, fees, suspensions etc, but it wasn't my fault to begin with. Gotta love when people cant own up to their shit.

[circa]

If the lady lied her a$s off, why not fight this and have her fix your car on her dime? If I knew I was not at fault, I wouldn't give up so easily. Just my 2 cents, good luck.

[southpaw]

What a cunt.

It had to be said.

Age profiling is ridiculous.

Sorry about the accident, man.

[oomz1975]

If you have photos of the car show them to the insurance company, make them aware of the condition of your car before that byatch hit you.

[Tacks 4 Snacks]

seriously doesnt look that bad. new fender, and bumper and all the fun stuff behind it.... if the shop is good you can probably keep the hood. looks like it will need some suspension parts also. but its hard to tell. Consider yourself lucky. My wife was t-boned(passenger side.) in her e36 that was mint back in feb.... only 80k miles on it. she walked away with only shaken up but car was completely totaled. hers was alpine over beige also.

Your correct, but it will also need a new axle as i think its bent, and the towing company fucked up a rim so they will be paying for that. We took it to the best shop we had access too. I'm friends with the guy so i may be able to get my hands dirty and actually learn something in the process.

Your story sounds like a frightening experience. You know, i was thinking about that. I'm lucky she hadn't hit me a few feet in the other direction or that big mangled mess could've been me.


my car got totaled the 2nd day I was back from college for summer vacation. ended up good for me after a shitload of work parting out my old car. Looks like this can be fixed easily. If you found an alpine e39 parts car you could pull all the stuff you need off of it.

Man that sounds like an awful situation. Luckily i was not under the influence at the time xD

My dad and i are currently working on finding a donor car. The problem is there are about 4 different bumper types for e39's and finding the right one is crucial. We may just go replica if the insurance gives us funds for a new one. I'm crossing my fingers on a possible upgrade to an M5 bumper lol.


If the lady lied her a$s off, why not fight this and have her fix your car on her dime? If I knew I was not at fault, I wouldn't give up so easily. Just my 2 cents, good luck.


What a cunt.

It had to be said.

Age profiling is ridiculous.

Sorry about the accident, man.

I probably could, but i would be fighting for mutual fault and my arguement is basically her word against mine. I had a passenger, but she wasn't looking in the direction the car was coming.

Also, the cop was against me entirely and i think the police report reflects that. Age-profiling is awful. :mad He was going to write me a ticket for careless driving! Believe me if anyone were being careless, it would be the other driver...


If you have photos of the car show them to the insurance company, make them aware of the condition of your car before that byatch hit you.

I have a couple and hopefully that will help with the fight. It was for the most part pristine and had a clean record prior.

[Karbon]

Sorry this happend to you man!
Fortunatly the damage isn't too extensive and it can be saved. If you have pics that are dated close to when the accident happend - show them to the insurance company. They have to replace original BMW parts with original BMW parts as long as you tell them to. If you don't they'll put aftermarket crap on and you probably won't even know. Granted not all aftermarket is crap, but they're going to go the cheap route if they can.


Maybe this is a good excuse to get the M5 front bumper? :D

[Tacks 4 Snacks]

Sorry this happend to you man!
Fortunatly the damage isn't too extensive and it can be saved. If you have pics that are dated close to when the accident happend - show them to the insurance company. They have to replace original BMW parts with original BMW parts as long as you tell them to. If you don't they'll put aftermarket crap on and you probably won't even know. Granted not all aftermarket is crap, but they're going to go the cheap route if they can.


Maybe this is a good excuse to get the M5 front bumper? :D

Well that's what i'm hoping :) maybe ill do some careful persuasion to get my dad to suggest it to the body shop guy.

Where would be a dependable place to get one with a good fit?

[monkeyking]

Their gonna want to find use parts to fix it up, so we will have a tough job convincing the insurance agency that it was basically pristine, and an equal replacement would be new parts.

sorry to hear about your accident & forutnately you were not injured. to be honest, your not going to be able to get the insurance company to get you new oem parts as a replacement unless your policy specifically guarantees this as a clause. you can however ask & you may be required to split the difference in cost. most likely, they will go used 1st &/or aftermarket 2nd. granted this is not what you want to hear but this is how unfortunately its going to pan out. the insurance company is required to make you "whole" from this accident. there is nothing that says making you whole, requires them to give you a new oem parts for the entire job. what is required is "like kind and quality or functional equivelant". this is unfortunately the way it works. years ago, yes, you would most likely get all oem parts due to limited availability of aftermarket parts. best to work w/ the adjustor & see what they say.

depending on what the insurance company says when the come to access the damages, the adjustor may decide to declare your car a total loss. the car is worth approximately 6k on the high side. looking at your damages your going to be almost at 3k.

i experienced something similar. i had a pristine fully loaded 85 corvette w/ less than 5000k on the odometer in 1990. the car was only driven on weekends. garaged, dealer maintained, etc... long story short, i was deployed to the persian gulf. i left the car in car of my brother, the car was totaled. i got 7k from the car. they used the fair market price to determine value & this was through usaa which is better than most insurance companies.

i'm abit confused by your comment about the e39 having 4 different bumpers? unless you are adding in preface lift donor cars which would be a build date of < 9/00.

your car is a 2000 facelift 525i the part number for the bumper w/ headlight washer is 51117030922. there are only 2 types of bumpers available. 1 w/ headlight washer & 1 with out for your model type. the other 2 types of bumpers are for the m5 so the search for a donor one should be fairly easy. i would not rule out using a non headlight washer bumper & have the shop cut out the holes which has been done before. if you decide to go the aftermarket m5 route, the cost can not exceed what the insurance will pay, if so, the remainder will be out of your pocket. this would be a discussion with the body shop. usually, they are fairly accomidating as its already known what insurance will pay total since there will be an estimate before any work is done.

good luck. hopefully all this will work out for you. give it some thought what you want to do, go original or m5. talk & work w/ the adjustor.
cheers,
larry

[Tacks 4 Snacks]

sorry to hear about your accident & forutnately you were not injured. to be honest, your not going to be able to get the insurance company to get you new oem parts as a replacement unless your policy specifically guarantees this as a clause. you can however ask & you may be required to split the difference in cost. most likely, they will go used 1st &/or aftermarket 2nd. granted this is not what you want to hear but this is how unfortunately its going to pan out. the insurance company is required to make you "whole" from this accident. there is nothing that says making you whole, requires them to give you a new oem parts for the entire job. what is required is "like kind and quality or functional equivelant". this is unfortunately the way it works. years ago, yes, you would most likely get all oem parts due to limited availability of aftermarket parts. best to work w/ the adjustor & see what they say.

depending on what the insurance company says when the come to access the damages, the adjustor may decide to declare your car a total loss. the car is worth approximately 6k on the high side. looking at your damages your going to be almost at 3k.

i experienced something similar. i had a pristine fully loaded 85 corvette w/ less than 5000k on the odometer in 1990. the car was only driven on weekends. garaged, dealer maintained, etc... long story short, i was deployed to the persian gulf. i left the car in car of my brother, the car was totaled. i got 7k from the car. they used the fair market price to determine value & this was through usaa which is better than most insurance companies.

i'm abit confused by your comment about the e39 having 4 different bumpers? unless you are adding in preface lift donor cars which would be a build date of < 9/00.

your car is a 2000 facelift 525i the part number for the bumper w/ headlight washer is 51117030922. there are only 2 types of bumpers available. 1 w/ headlight washer & 1 with out for your model type. the other 2 types of bumpers are for the m5 so the search for a donor one should be fairly easy. i would not rule out using a non headlight washer bumper & have the shop cut out the holes which has been done before. if you decide to go the aftermarket m5 route, the cost can not exceed what the insurance will pay, if so, the remainder will be out of your pocket. this would be a discussion with the body shop. usually, they are fairly accomidating as its already known what insurance will pay total since there will be an estimate before any work is done.

good luck. hopefully all this will work out for you. give it some thought what you want to do, go original or m5. talk & work w/ the adjustor.
cheers,
larry

that sounds like a really shitty incident. If someone else totalled my car id be pissed! lol.

What i meant about the multiple bumpers was that the e39 has multiple trim options (shadowline, painted, and both with chrome) along with the pdc and headlight washer option so it will be crucial to find one from 02' with the same or similar trim. given, they can be painted and modded to fit.

Thanks for the insight into the insurance situation! Being my first accident i honestly have no idea how this will work. I'm mostly putting it in the hands of my dad, who i know will do everything he can to get it back to the way it was.

I knew making this thread was a good idea, i feel more informed by the minute lol

[Tacks 4 Snacks]

So, shitty news has just arrived, piling on top of my already dreary situation.

It will cost $5,200 to fix my car and its worth about $6,200 going by the book value at excellent condition.

Basically i am told it's totaled. According to the body shop guy, it isn't worth trying to piece it back together. Too many things, unseen by just glancing at it, are in need of repair that will most definitely take it over $6k.

I love my e39 enough to take the risk of repairing her and facing the cost, but odds are against me. This may be the end for her :(

[R3VOLT]

Bummer.

[volodka1985]

Grown ups...

[monkeyking]

sorry to hear the bad news. hopefully the insurance will pull through w/ a decent settlement to put towards another car. looking quickly in nj craigslist, there are a few good looking e39s for sale in the 5k range.

the other option you could consider if it is totaled. provided that you have space & mechanical know how. buy the car back from the insurance w/ part of the settlement & part it out. you could be more ahead this route depending on the numbers. good luck. let us know how it turns out.
cheers,
larry

[JCooper]

OP how exactly did this accident happen?

[Tacks 4 Snacks]

OP how exactly did this accident happen?

I believe I was hit by a lady making a right from a stop sign as i was making a left from a stop sign. Sounds kinda confusing, but they were different stop signs. Picture a crowded mall with many cars and there are two stop signs at the end of a row of cars. So there's like 2 car lengths between them.

She had told the cops she was going straight on the road at 20mph and that she braked. But the truth is my car was hit so hard that she had to have been moving faster, and did not brake. She said she swerved, but if you looked at where she ended up at the time of the accident, it literally looked like she was merging from the stop sign, and didn't see me as i didn't see her.

I said all this to the cop, and said received a "Your a new driver, you probably didn't look, or ran the stop sign" which is total bullshit.

Because she said she wasn't merging and was going straight, it's my fault. If she had been merging like what it seemed she was doing, it would have been mutual fault because we were both doing identical turns and were struck in basically the same place. (I asked an insurance agent a few days after).

Had i been a 40 year old, clean shaven guy with a BMW rather than a scruffy teenager, my side of the story would have been respected.

Instead the cop figured i was lying to cover my ass, cause that's what all teenagers do... :confused

[hellrotred325i]

I believe I was hit by a lady making a right from a stop sign as i was making a left from a stop sign. Sounds kinda confusing, but they were different stop signs. Picture a crowded mall with many cars and there are two stop signs at the end of a row of cars. So there's like 2 car lengths between them.

She had told the cops she was going straight on the road at 20mph and that she braked. But the truth is my car was hit so hard that she had to have been moving faster, and did not brake. She said she swerved, but if you looked at where she ended up at the time of the accident, it literally looked like she was merging from the stop sign, and didn't see me as i didn't see her.

I said all this to the cop, and said received a "Your a new driver, you probably didn't look, or ran the stop sign" which is total bullshit.

Because she said she wasn't merging and was going straight, it's my fault. If she had been merging like what it seemed she was doing, it would have been mutual fault because we were both doing identical turns and were struck in basically the same place. (I asked an insurance agent a few days after).

Had i been a 40 year old, clean shaven guy with a BMW rather than a scruffy teenager, my side of the story would have been respected.

Instead the cop figured i was lying to cover my ass, cause that's what all teenagers do... :confused

it sucks that your car is damaged, but more so because of the age profiling. Coming from an 18 year old, I know exactly what you mean, and the fact that owning a BMW doesn't help that. I get "feces" (see what i did there haha) talked on my all the time because everyone thinks that mom and dad bought the car for me. So, if that's not your case, then you are extremely lucky to have an e39 to drive from your parents haha. I would say fight it because even though you're still at fault, its the principle of the accident that really matters

reading through that it kind of sounds like i went on a tangent for a second, just ignore that ;)

[Devi22]

I get "feces" (see what i did there haha) talked on my all the time because everyone thinks that mom and dad bought the car for me.

I get the same "feces" dude lol. They think just because it's a BMW means its super expensive and brand new, not knowing the hours put into making it look like an unaffordable car, nor the odometer reading (220k lol).

[Lord DRIFT]

Thanks for the support guys.

Just got this pic sent to me by the body shop guy. Its gonna pretty much stay like this til Tuesday.
http://i1089.photobucket.com/albums/i346/tacksforsnacks7/nomnomnom.jpg
Their gonna want to find use parts to fix it up, so we will have a tough job convincing the insurance agency that it was basically pristine, and an equal replacement would be new parts.

Wow...that really does suck; I believe they parked you next to a honda j/k..



Bummer dude.

[AndrewH]

Hey man, where you at in NJ with the beach plates and all?

[HTOWN///M]

Sorry to hear that. Ive had that happen before. I know in texas that no matter who is at fault in a parking lot. stop sign or not. There can not be fault assigned to one person. Its considered a wash and both insurances cover their own driver. has happened to me before(multiple times with old ladies and ppl texting) Also if its a total lose you can always work a deal with insurance to take a cut of what they pay you and you can keep the car and fix it on your own. A lot cheaper that way. My last car was too far gone and insurance ended up giving me twice almost 3 times what my m3 was worth and they let me take all my aftermarket parts off...So hope it all work out for you in the end. keep us updated.

[jhstealth]

Hope you get some upgrades out of this! To be honest with how cheap stuff is from ddm and the other vendors now id talk to the body guy and get your M bumper and such. Even if they order used parts the insurance company looks at junkyards which will want a decent amount for the used parts anyway. I had the whole front end of my e36 upgraded from an accident and I think there was even like $30 left which we just gave our body shop guy to get beer or whatever.

[Tacks 4 Snacks]

Hey man, where you at in NJ with the beach plates and all?

I'm near Woodbridge. This used to be my dads car and he had just renewed them when i got the car, so he got those plates.

I hate them lol. Next month ill be getting new ones.


Sorry to hear that. Ive had that happen before. I know in texas that no matter who is at fault in a parking lot. stop sign or not. There can not be fault assigned to one person. Its considered a wash and both insurances cover their own driver. has happened to me before(multiple times with old ladies and ppl texting) Also if its a total lose you can always work a deal with insurance to take a cut of what they pay you and you can keep the car and fix it on your own. A lot cheaper that way. My last car was too far gone and insurance ended up giving me twice almost 3 times what my m3 was worth and they let me take all my aftermarket parts off...So hope it all work out for you in the end. keep us updated.

Yeah, parking lots totally suck -_- The good news is my car is not totaled!

We got 5,200 to fix the car. They could've totaled it if it was a few hundred higher. So i got lucky. Its currently getting fixed and I'm ecstatic! Look for some updates with how it's coming along here :D


Hope you get some upgrades out of this! To be honest with how cheap stuff is from ddm and the other vendors now id talk to the body guy and get your M bumper and such. Even if they order used parts the insurance company looks at junkyards which will want a decent amount for the used parts anyway. I had the whole front end of my e36 upgraded from an accident and I think there was even like $30 left which we just gave our body shop guy to get beer or whatever.

Lol the body shop guy must have appreciated that/

We went with a few aftermarket parts. I actually picked up Depos and an M5 bumper from Bavauto. We told them the situation and they gave us a discount on shipping lol.

In fact, they showed up today. I'm gonna unwrap them and post pictures later! lol