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Don't let your dream car die!

theosinc930

Member
In 2021, when I turned 18, I received a 2003 BMW Z4 2.5i as a gift from my parents. I had saved a few thousand euros for the car since I was a child, the rest came from my parents. The car was a dream for me. Inline six-cylinder, manual transmission, rear-wheel drive, convertible... simply wonderful. According to the VIN, the Z4 was only 3 weeks younger than me! In the first three years, I drove almost 43,000km through 10 countries in the Z4.
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My favorite memories by car were the trips through the Alps: Stelvio Pass, Furka Pass, Pordoi Pass, Bernina Pass and the others that you can see in the second picture with the stickers :)
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Well, unfortunately I had bad luck during my second Alps trip in September 2024. After I had enjoyed the Stelvio Pass for the second time, a woman behind me was distracted at the wheel, didn't see that I braked and drove into me...
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My girlfriend and I weren't hurt, and the woman in the other car was ok too. After we were done with the police, I looked at the car. The engine didn't want to start anymore, but eventually I managed to repair it. The battery safety terminal was to blame. I then secured the bumper with wire, closed the trunk with a rope and decided to drive the car back home.
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After a 1500km drive, I arrived home without any further problems. The airbag light was on because of the belt tensioners, but otherwise the car drove exactly as before. Then the fun with insurance began. Since I have Romanian license plates and the woman had Italian license plates, the whole process with the insurance company took 2 months.
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I then went to a body shop where the car was dismantled to estimate the repair costs. My trunk floor was quite badly deformed, but the mechanics thought it was repairable. The verdict was unfortunately quite sad, because the insurance company decided that the repair would cost more than the value of the car. In addition, many spare parts were no longer available. But I didn't want to accept a total loss. I had invested far too much money in mechanical repairs since 2021 to lose the car.

I looked for another solution after that. I had the idea to buy another Z4 as a parts donor. In the UK I found a 2005 Z4 2.5i with sports seats and Style 108 wheels. I ended up buying the car for £1000 but unfortunately, I had quite a bit of trouble finding someone to deliver the car to my home. But after a few weeks I managed to do it.
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The red Z4 arrived and I took the two cars to another workshop. Here, the mechanics would use the entire rear part (including the trunk floor) of the parts car to repair my Z4. They then started to disassemble the parts car by removing the spot welds holding the sheet metal parts together.

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After they were done with the parts car and prepared all the spare parts, the whole process was repeated with my car. Everything was slowly dismantled until all deformed body parts were removed.
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Now the actual repair begins. The sheet metal parts of the parts car are welded on my car. The picture you see below was sent yesterday from the workshop:
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And so my Z4 gets a new ass :)
Part 2 of the story will hopefully be here soon.

As a small bonus, my Z4 will now also get sports seats with heating. We will install the whole beige interior of the parts car, along with the extra speakers and style 108 rims. In the end, the car will be even better than before the accident!
 
Sounds like a happy ending is in sight. Could you give any rough estimate for all the mechanics bills for what looks like a huge amount of work?
 
Gebbly said:
Sounds like a happy ending is in sight. Could you give any rough estimate for all the mechanics bills for what looks like a huge amount of work?

Probably around 2000€ for the labour
 
That donor car looks fairly good. What was wrong with it and might it have been better to strip bits off your car into the donor.
 
Mike6 said:
That donor car looks fairly good. What was wrong with it and might it have been better to strip bits off your car into the donor.

LHD versus RHD for starters, that would be a challenge. Also, importing a car to drive rather than a donor car has tax implications as well.
 
pvr said:
Mike6 said:
That donor car looks fairly good. What was wrong with it and might it have been better to strip bits off your car into the donor.

LHD versus RHD for starters, that would be a challenge. Also, importing a car to drive rather than a donor car has tax implications as well.
And most importantly, it is that car he is attached to.
 
Your Z4 journey was going so well until that bump in the Alps. :(

But at least it will have a happy ending, so I'm looking forward to Part 2. :thumbsup:
 
Bloody awesome!! good on you for rebuilding. :thumbsup:
 

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pvr said:
Mike6 said:
That donor car looks fairly good. What was wrong with it and might it have been better to strip bits off your car into the donor.

LHD versus RHD for starters, that would be a challenge. Also, importing a car to drive rather than a donor car has tax implications as well.

What you said is right, but there are a few more reasons. The donor car had been sitting abandoned in someone's yard for more than a year. It was just generally tired and neglected. Take a look at the MOT history of the donor. You'll see that it's just old and unloved, even though it did run and drive just fine.
 
Preparing the sport seats! I've been wanting to get a pair of these ever since I got the car, but the prices were hard to justify. In the end, getting a donor car to fix the accident damage was the perfect excuse to find one with sport seats.
In the pictures, I'm cleaning them with some leather cleaner from a detailing shop.
The seats feel incredible, they're so much better than the normal ones. Why weren't they standard?
 

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You did well finding a donor car for £1,000 with those M-Sport seats. The seats on their own typically sell for more than half that!

And you are right, they really should have been fitted as standard in Z4s.
 
Mr Tidy said:
You did well finding a donor car for £1,000 with those M-Sport seats. The seats on their own typically sell for more than half that!

And you are right, they really should have been fitted as standard in Z4s.
I feel like the owner didn't really know what he had. By the way, the ebay listing for this car was literally getting 10 times more attention than the other listings for cheap Z4s. 112 people had saved it! And I'm sure it was because of the sport seats!
 

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What a gift for your 18th, and properly sorry to see it being rear ended :cry: Especially after all those trip.

Brilliant rebuild and thread to show though, look forward to the updates. You're going to need to collect some more stickers for the boot lid :driving:
 
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