I was riding up the 405 freeway yesterday when I heard a loud “BANG!” Someone had hit my brand new (to me), mint condition, Galvanic Gold, hyper-rare 2021 BMW i3S. I turned to see a motorcyclist splitting lanes ahead, wobbling from the impact. He continued riding; it was a hit and run. I drove to work, stepped out of the car, and surveyed the damage. “SON OF A BITCH!”
It was a scratch. Not a huge scratch, but a scratch. A white line on my mirror, and I was livid! Mostly because this biker had hit my car (possibly on purpose, since he was splitting lanes, and possibly punishing those who were maybe a bit off to the left) and just rode off with not a care in the world. That’s just unacceptable! It’s also possible it was an accident; either way, just stop if you hit someone else’s car — not cool.
Anyway, here’s the baby scratch on my mirror:
The impact had been loud, so I was surprised the damage was so minor. Luckily, though, it wasn’t on the mirror housing’s gloss black section, which is painted, but instead on that coarse black plastic section, which appears to be injection molded and black all the way through.
This is actually a great design choice by BMW, because it means you can bang that mirror on a parking garage entry-ticket machine and, while you’ll sustain a scratch, you won’t be able to tell because that scratch’s valley will be the same color as the rest of that part of the mirror. I know this because look at how my mirror looks now:
Looks pretty much all fixed! If you look closely, you can see some roughness from the motorcycle incident on the right half of this image:
But for the most part, it’s repaired, and I’m happy with how the car looks overall. But it got me thinking: First, if a little scratch like this has me all concerned, I need to get XPEL PPF as soon as possible. And second, when is this “phase” going to go away? Like, surely not every scratch is going to bum me out forever, right?
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My brother just bought a yellow Audi S3 recently, and he’s going through the same issue. He got a rock chip the other week, and it bummed him out. I used to have the same worry with my brother’s 1966 Ford Mustang and my 1993 Jeep Grand Cherokee “Holy Grail.” They were all just so nice that adding even a scratch to them could ruin your afternoon. Surely you, dear readers, can relate? When will I be released from this prison?
Anyway, my partner, Elise (that’s not her real name), suggests that I keep my 2014 i3 and use that as my errands car. I won’t care if someone hits its mirror or if a rock chips its hood — it’s older, it has higher mileage, and it’s not in mint condition. But does it make sense to have two i3s? Does it matter if it makes sense?
Maybe it doesn’t matter if it makes sense, and I should just own the cars I like, and when I get tired of one, I get rid of it. Maybe I’ll get tired of having two i3s, or maybe I’ll remain in this drunken-love state in which I see the i3 as an engineering masterpiece the likes of which we may never see again. Who knows? All I know is: I may be holding onto that gray i3 for my daily commuting — at least for a while.
Yeah, but if you sell the grail you won’t be saving it from any damage. Those same fact-of-life events will just happen to the next owner. You may as well drive the car, do the best you can, and enjoy driving it for how well it was engineered and built and how it makes you feel when you use it. It’s going to get dinged anyway, it may as well happen while it’s owned by you.
I stopped sweating two years into my RS5 experience. I drove my wife nuts, checking out the car like a Hertz clerk whenever she went anywhere. After the rats ate my wire harness ($3k) I gave up, tuned it, and now drive hard and often. It took me 4 years of babying to realize the true joy is hard driving, hard acceleration and local canyons.I am now at peace with 600 hp and equal torque.
Couldn’t you just get the new i3 wrapped in a clear protection film and keep on keeping on? Sure, due to the LA sun you will have to replace it every 3-5 years but it’s less work than maintaining two cars, especially because the one has prohibitively expensive tyres.
A place I worked at years ago had one of those Successories posters that read something like “A ship in the harbor is safe, but that isn’t what the ship was built for”.
I’ve always liked that quote. Seems applicable here too.
Then again the Miata I waited 25 years to get wound up getting rear ended two and a half months after I bought it, so I can definitely understand the desire to keep the rare i3 safe.
I feel for you and the miata, I finaly got my mini after wanting one since I was 6, and 6 months later a disgruntled sex offender put something in my oil and obliterated the motor because I held him accountable for his choices and he didn’t like it. I did finally figure out which parolee it was, but as it’s a misdemeanor offense the statute of limitations ran out after a year so he can’t be prosecuted for it. Car’s still out of commission and now I’m into it another 5k but I’m getting close to having it back on the road.
Wow, sabotaging your car qualifies as a misdemeanor? That’s messed up. I would think the $5,000 repair bill would elevate it to a felony.
I hope you get it running soon.
With luck I will, but the threshold for making it a felony is something like 15k. If he’d stolen it it would be a 15 year potential prison sentence but criminal mischief isn’t exactly something that the prosecutors like to move from the justice courts up to the district courts in my state.
I think the big question is… what about camping in the Aztek???
Within a month of owning my brand-new van I climbed onto the roof and cut a hole in the roof to install a fan. Since then I’ve cut a few more holes in it but then again I don’t believe in keeping mint-condition anything, anyways. The things I buy serve a practical purpose, and if I’m not using them in a way that can earn them some scars, it feels like I’m not fulfilling their entire purpose.
I think keeping 2 of the same model car as daily drivers is kind of redundant, also in keeping the older model you’re depriving someone else of a really nice reliable car that you got for a steal with the battery deal.
I say get the PPF, maybe try to adjust your commute hours to lighter times(why can’t editor of a digital car site not telecommute?) or consider alternate routes.
The i3 is fancy, but it’s not i7 fancy, it’s still a Honda Element facsimile built out of carbon fiber and the finest German chocolate(I think the dash is chocolate right?), drive it and enjoy it now that you have the inaugural scratch.
On a brand-new car it can be as long as 12-18 months, but on a slightly used car its only 8-10 months or whenever you get your first windshield chip (whichever comes first). Thats when you’ll care less about minor imperfections.
Seriously, Dave, I’m sure everyone who knew you and still lives in Michigan is shaking their heads in disappointment. You’ve gone L.A. Dave. What next, a beach house with an 8 car garage and a car valet on staff?
Would that be so bad?!
No, that would not be bad at all!
Your opening paragraphs were very unexpected, David. Any person who thinks that a motorcyclist is going to intentionally, spitefully damage 3-5000 pound motor vehicles at the risk of ending up dead underneath one of them is not thinking. At all.
Honestly, I expect more.
“ahead, wobbling from the impact”…”rode off, with not a care in the world”
Do read what you’ve written? It sounds like you’ve never been on a bike.
I used to ride all the time. Completely rebuilt a 1981 GS550 that I snagged for $300, and rode it all around Detroit for years.
Even though I don’t ride anymore, I do still have a license; I get that motorcyclists don’t like to be painted in any negative way, so I should have expected some backlash from even SUGGESTING that this person may have done this on purpose. But he very well may have; anyone who does a hit and run is not cool.
I’ve personally watched lane splitters taking their hand of the bars to smack door mirrors back because they felt inconvenienced. Maybe he just misjudged his width, given he seems to have tapped the i3 with his bike to have left a scratch, I’d say it was a mistake, but if you asked me to two most entitled road users, it’s lifted trucks and motorcyclists. Their choice to use a less safe mode of transport is apparently everyone else’s issue.
(There are PLENTY of good people who ride, and whenever I can, I’ll hug the edge of my lane to help them get through, but every, single group you can put people in will have good and bad, no group is exempt.)
Well said. I didn’t say he did it on purpose, I said that, given that he didn’t stop, maybe he did. Who the heck knows.
I get that there are good and bad anything. But as an avid motorcyclist (say ‘biker’ and I will cut you) I have to be on my game every time I ride to not get killed. People didn’t see motorcycles in this country before there were 52″ of screens in front of them when driving. Now it is like we’re invisible and they’re trying to kill us.
So I am not acting entitled. I am simply *over* being nearly killed just for riding.
That’s all good, I’m more than happy to throw you into the “good” end of things, I like to think everyone’s doing their best until they prove to me they’re not, and like I said, I, as a car owner, do my best to make sure you guys have enough room to move, I grew up doing Motorcross, I know they’re fun and I know they’re dangerous and I’ve got respect for those game enough to trust other road users with their lives like that, but it’s still a choice and I’ve just seen a lot of motorcyclists get over-reactionary from people’s errors because they feel more at risk, and even if that’s so, they’re the one choosing to lane split etc.
Regardless, unobservant road users are everywhere, using all times of transport, stay safe out there.
Given the brand new battery in the ‘14 its value to you is likely higher than its value to someone else (even if you have the documents to provide). So if you have the space and a supportive partner, keep that thing!
Well I am sure you know this as part of the automotive scene but it is a common thing with bikers to specifically target someones mirror if they nearly hit them.
Perhaps you only noticed the fallout and was oblivious to the infraction that left you with the damage.
If you nearly kill a biker, there are tons and tons of videos showing them catching up at a light and smashing peoples mirrors off.
Other bikers then know to steer clear of cars with damaged mirrors. Maybe it was just a love tap and not the downward smash that leaves it dangling.
Or the guy was just a jerk.
Why not keep the newer i3 and replace the other with an i8?
Or meld them both together and get an ii6!
Genius!
It’d be an i5.5 no?
Depends how much of the original cars survive, I guess. If it’s a “human centipede” (sorry for the reference) situation, then ii6 would be apt. But if one just extends the passenger cabin while leaving the drivetrain intact – maybe adding more batteries, because why not? – then something near a 4-5.5 would be accurate.
Much like merging black holes, you always lose a little mass by the end of it. Although, this time it would be knuckle skin, a little blood, and at least one 10mm socket that all get converted into energetic swearing.
“I need an excuse to hoard vehicles, so please enable me to hoard”?
Cars get damaged. They’re disposable appliances. Hopefully they don’t get so damaged to become unusable before you’re done with it for whatever reason. Enjoy your i3S, make some money off the fact the black one has a new battery. And get rid of more of your
derelictscollection. Imagine if Galpin had to repave all of their lots over the course of several months and you no longer had “free” storage, what would you do?you can keep both i3’s if you let loose of some other of your stock
They’re boring commuter cars. At least his Jeep collection could be used to make offroad adventure content.
Objectively, an i3 is more interesting than pretty much any Jeep.
But I love them all.
Engineering-wise I absolutely agree.
Driving wise…eh. Sell your other one and get a car with some enthusiast potential. Or do a rallycross at the fairgrounds in Landcaster with the i3
Talking about “the” 405 and motorcycling lane splitting (technically called lane sharing) tells me you’re full California now!
Filtering/Sharing is now legal in more states! It was the only thing I missed about California when I left for Colorado. Colorado just legalized it (for stoplight situations) after I left for Virginia.
Come on Virginia!
Might be time for you to take this quiz, DT :
https://thehardtimes.net/blog/do-you-drive-a-hybrid-car-for-the-environment-or-just-because-you-like-silently-creeping-around-parking-lots/
Nonsense. There is nothing more liberating than the first scratch on a shiny new object. Now you can stop fetishizing it and enjoy it for what it is and the purpose it was made for.
Same thing happened to my 2012 Ram a couple years ago. The biker wobbled but never looked back and took off before I could catch up with him at the next red light. It left a similar scuff on the black plastic mirror housing. I didn’t worry too much as it was a 10 year old truck at the time. However, a couple months later the mirror glass became loose and almost fell out. The plastic ball and socket that allows the mirror to adjust had cracked. I can’t prove if this failure was related to the impact from the motorcycle handlebar hit but you should keep an eye on that mirror to make sure there is no internal damage. I used silicon and a piece of scrap plastic to bond the glass back into place but I can no longer adjust the position of the mirror.
Does this have the part you’re looking for?
https://www.amazon.com/Youxmoto-Replacement-2009-68079363AA-68079362AA/dp/B0B3MZ6BWH/ref=sr_1_24?af=eyJ2ZWhpY2xlTmFtZSI6IjIwMTIgUmFtIDE1MDAiLCJ2ZWhpY2xlIjoiMjAxMi0xMTY4LTE2MjI3LS0tLS0tLS0tLS0tIn0%3D&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.9_LUALw_abiJNs1XxW3g2lYIlJSh0du37hOQ1anaY2TTYdz1XogePWQxFZqhBQUZKkaNYmfeWeW74dEbWM7YbRojHwJTaRZbK25xB5E75oAfQ5Uuv6EgsnyyDUXP7Xf6EEVcmfT9fVs-Ap363btfS4yTkvL-iOXsFT_TQVUyr8olq7cCWgcKLnQd7d1x7BhEeqSsC7kruqE6XZp9MjSxeSKM-HBZug2MlXawPI9K2MC3faT3OtAPDjfhBG8cLvewTKdI82y_F69OgY91NMZIHtcqyt2yD2qH-_8YFri_Kl0.9_tilllPREv2nh8d4IxOx3TY2WVeCjyj8IxwwZk8Azg&dib_tag=se&keywords=2012%2Bram%2B1500%2Bmirror&qid=1717544000&sr=8-24&vehicle=2012-1168-16227————&vehicleName=2012%2BRam%2B1500&th=1
If you have an i3 for commuting, having ANOTHER i3 for non-commuting (presumably longer drives, as I can’t see it being used as a fun canyon carver?) seems, erm, silly? To put it nicely…
Keep one. If you want two cars to serve two purposes, get two DIFFERENT cars, not a variant of the one you already have. If the point of the new i3 is that it’s the perfect car for everything normal person would need – prove it.
Usually I’m precious about it for the first year or until someone scratches my car or I get a chip on the windshield. Whichever comes first. I try to keep my vehicles for a decade or more so it will have a few blemishes by the time I’m done with it.
Goof Off can work wonders on paint transfer, but I’ve not tried it on plastic trim and probably wouldn’t – works really well on painted panels when you can’t get it off with Goo Gone or elbow grease. You just have to be super fast and careful with it because it is a solvent that smells a hell of a lot like paint thinner. I had to employ such tactics when an a-hole sideswiped me in a hit and run on stolen plates.
Keep both cars for as long as you want, and proudly feel free to be OCD whenever you please!
I always buy used in part so the cars come somewhat pre-scratched. And still, I can’t get over even the smallest damage that happens on my watch.
Maybe it is because I have a long history of cars getting damaged right away. My current i3 got the windshield chipped as I was driving home from the dealer (get glass insurance!). A previous car was scratched the very first day I drove it. I left it parked and came back to find a guy, casually chatting on the phone inside his car, as his bumper was still fully sitting on mine.
Some jackhole side swiped my parked Niro about 3 months after I bought it during alternate side parking, I didn’t have a dash cam yet, I would have loved to get them for hit and run. Get a dashcam asap! After that the bloom was off the rose, nicks don’t bug my much now.
From frozen tundra rust wrangler to enlarge to see little nick in plastic, where’s my fainting couch.