One neat trick to totaling your exotic car (number 4 is like woah!)
- Thread starter Mike K
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Damn. Even hearing this I would still love to own an i8. But even the oldest highest mileage ones are still out of my poverty pay grade 
Also I do have to drive over some decent sized speed humps going into and leaving work every day.... but my M235i is lowered and I haven't totaled that yet. I do have to crawl over them tho. But I can still drive straight over, I don't have to angle my car and take up 2 lanes and drive over them sideways at .5mph like all those hip StAnCe BrOs
Also I do have to drive over some decent sized speed humps going into and leaving work every day.... but my M235i is lowered and I haven't totaled that yet. I do have to crawl over them tho. But I can still drive straight over, I don't have to angle my car and take up 2 lanes and drive over them sideways at .5mph like all those hip StAnCe BrOs
Iāve sent plenty of people to a guy that works at Lockheed Martin and does carbon repairs out of his garage.
yeah i didn't think the insurance company would care- i just wasn't sure if california had any laws- like in IL you can't buy back something newer than 9 years iirc.
agreed. that was my thought. carbon fiber isn't some super exotic material anymore. i mean plenty of carbon fiber race cars get fixed...
in IL i think you'd still have a clean title in your hand, but the car would have salvage history if you were to look up the vin.
i think to get a rebuilt title you have to apply for it.
Hey I get it but it's really no different than any other carbon fiber tub car. That's not really an issue unique to the i8.
I went to look at the car at BMW today. The mechanic and I went over it and boy am I torn. The picture they sent me that I thought was the crack looked like a tab had been punched in the tub. In reality, it was a scrape in the tub and totally superficial. It was the other side that was the issue but even that doesn't look bad. The edge of a lip was chipped. The resin in this area is thicker and a chunk broke off. It's not really a crack. More like a chunk of resin missing. There is no crack. And I asked the mechanic what he thought. He jokingly covered the BMW badge on his shirt and said if it was his he'd drive it and not worry about it. I have to say, I'm inclined to feel the same way. BMW's official fix requires an ENTIRE TUB because the floor panel is not separately replaceable. And literally everything on the car is attached to the tub. Everything. I don't think there's a single part of the car that wouldn't come off and be put back.
But then he gets into BMW's technical specifications and they say if there are any exposed fibers (there are) the panel needs to be replaced. And he said, even if there were no exposed fibers, if the damage is over .2 inches (It's .29) the panel needs to be replaced. And if the damage is greater than 10mm in length (it is) it needs to be replaced. I get why they need to be so stringent but in reality I can't imagine this has any impact on the vehicle whatsoever.
I'm torn because this will show in inspection if/ when someone buys the car from me and it will negatively affect the value of the car. And it is accident damage and this is why we have insurance. But the other half of me knows full well it's going to be totaled, that I'm going to buy it back and experience a financial windfall and my fix will be to have someone fill the area with resin at a minimal cost. It's just this weird spot to be in. I don't want to abuse insurance for something that seems so petty but technically it's damaged to the point of needing replacement, even if common sense says it will still last forever as is.
Picture of damage in next post.
But then he gets into BMW's technical specifications and they say if there are any exposed fibers (there are) the panel needs to be replaced. And he said, even if there were no exposed fibers, if the damage is over .2 inches (It's .29) the panel needs to be replaced. And if the damage is greater than 10mm in length (it is) it needs to be replaced. I get why they need to be so stringent but in reality I can't imagine this has any impact on the vehicle whatsoever.
I'm torn because this will show in inspection if/ when someone buys the car from me and it will negatively affect the value of the car. And it is accident damage and this is why we have insurance. But the other half of me knows full well it's going to be totaled, that I'm going to buy it back and experience a financial windfall and my fix will be to have someone fill the area with resin at a minimal cost. It's just this weird spot to be in. I don't want to abuse insurance for something that seems so petty but technically it's damaged to the point of needing replacement, even if common sense says it will still last forever as is.
Picture of damage in next post.
There are but they're appearance only. I think the only real option is laser lights. The beauty of Hagerty insurance is there's no negotiating. I have agreed value insurance of $80,000. So if they total it that's what they pay me. Even if 10 had sold last week for $50,000 they'd pay me $80,000. Collector car insurance is the bees knees. The variable I would need to watch out for is their buy-back price on the car. I'm not sure if that's a set price or not.
Buy it back... and drive the piss out of it and never sell it? Or sell it with salvage ... thats a win win.
I guess it's not that easy. Even people in the i8 community are like WTF to my damage. And the thing is, I could have gone a long time or even sold the car without having ever noticed it. Let's say five years elapses and I've sold the car. I just happened to *luck* out that BMW noticed this, reported it to me and corroborated the damage with Hagerty.
I can! I had an e39 M5 that was salvage and the title process was painless.
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