Yesterday, I discovered damage on the seat of my BMW i3S and was quite upset — so much so that my wife noticed I was bothered and told me she was sorry that I was so annoyed. That’s when I realized: Why am I – someone who rarely gets upset about anything – letting seat damage bother me? I’ve never in my entire life given even an inkling of a damn about a damaged seat, but now I do? The answer is simple: This BMW i3 seat is rare, and finding a replacement (or even just the fabric to repair it) is nontrivial.
And it’s not just my BMW i3. I also own a 1985 Jeep J10 pickup — one of only 1,500 built in 1985, and probably one of under 50,000 built with that generation of grille and interior. By now — 40 years later — the truck is hyper-rare.
This is not a good thing. It means that anytime I break an interior trim piece, or scuff the grille or bumper, or even see discoloration in the dash, I’m bothered.
I could have it much worse. Even though the specific trim of my i3 and J10 means certain bits are hard to find, at the very least it’s not too hard to find mechanical components, since both vehicles are — at least mechanically — largely identical to hundreds of thousands of other vehicles built on the same platform. My J10 shares many Jeep Grand Wagoneer components, my i3 is one of 250,000 i3s built worldwide. I’ll be able to at least keep these cars on the road, even if it means I have to fabricate my own AC vents.
But my friend Brandon has it worse. He has an absolutely stunning Jeep J4600 (that’s it below). It’s the heavy-duty version of my J10, but a bit older and with the cooler “Razor” grille. It’s going to be the perfect farm truck for him functionally speaking. It’s got a torquey V8 (rebuilt, thankfully), an unstoppable T18 four-speed transmission, and stump-pulling 4.10 axles. But there’s a problem: He simply cannot get new brake drums — I mean that they simply do not exist.
Check out this post on FSJ Network; someone is considering buying a 1971 Jeep J4600 like Brandon’s, and user tgreese replies:
The main issue for these mid-weight trucks with the Dana 60-2 (semi-full-floating) is the 12″x2″ brakes. The drums have been gone for decades
The parts have been gone for decades!
Luckily, Brandon’s drums are in good shape, and given that this is a farm Jeep, I bet he’ll never have to replace them. But still. What a pain in the ass if he does.
My colleague, Jason, drives a Nissan Pao, and though he can get replacement mechanical bits since the Pao is mechanically similar to a Nissan Micra, finding trim is tough. In fact, I had to bring him a vent window all the way from Hong Kong! Watch as a I battle a large huntsman spider in the video above.
This is the kind of stress I just don’t want in my life. I don’t want to have to track down (via a forum/Facebook group/swap meet) a tattered old “Muscle” grille for my Jeep J10, pay over $1000, and then have to worry about parking it in LA parking lots. I don’t want to have to worry about spilling something on my BMW i3 seats. Brandon doesn’t want to have to worry about using his brakes too much. And Jason can’t just send someone to Asia to snag Pao parts. This just isn’t worth it.
This is a major reason why I’m considering parting with my beloved Jeep J10 and keeping my 1989 Chevy K1500 4×4 five-speed. What use is that J10 if I have to baby it? Do I really need the stress of worrying about tearing my door panel or cracking my AC vents or busting my grille? What if someone dings my front bumper; where am I going to get a replacement?
Meanwhile, that Chevy? I can get any part I want for it for nothing. I won’t even care if someone bangs into my bumper or if I break my grille — it just doesn’t matter. Look at how insanely cheap a new rear bumper is:
Look at how cheap a new grille is!
And if there’s a trim piece I need, I can go to any junkyard and find five trucks with the same parts. In fact, my local LKQ is stocked:
If you want stress-free motoring, which is the best kind of motoring, buying a rare car isn’t the answer, because there are very few things more miserable in the car world than having to be hyper-careful with your car, and then if something happens, having to spend weeks tracking down parts that you’ll have to pay an arm and a leg for.
I’m keeping my i3, because 250,000 of them were made, so if I do need to replace something like a seat, I can find a replacement, it just will likely be from Europe. The J10 though? It’s a truck; what’s the point of a truck if I can’t use it? If I’m bummed anytime something breaks? If I can’t service it easily and cheaply?
Who am I kidding. That J10 has my heart. Rationality be damned.
In terms of staff cars, I must have the final bosses of rarity: a rotary motorcycle, two JDM imports, a Euro diesel that was never sold in the U.S., an old transit bus, and a Honda Super Cub imitator so rare that not even the manufacturer can tell me how few it built. 🙂 I suppose the Plymouth is also probably rare just due to all of the rest of them rusting away.
Parts? I buy ’em when I find ’em.
Yes. Though smaller, you still have a fleet of eccentric and esoteric vehicles. Best wishes going forward!
Can confirm, as my name suggests, my family has a 1988 Avanti Coupe, and though it’s based on a G-body (305ci V8), it’s got so many electrical and engine gremlins that seemingly no-one can fix. Not sure why, not sure how, but it’s such a problem child of a car.
I sometimes worry about this with my JDM 2013 Toyota Crown. I’ve already experienced the joy of waiting 3 months for a bit of trim (weather sealing for the sunroof) to be shipped to me from the UAE of all places. At least mechanically it shares most of its bits with a whole bunch of locally-delivered cars (2GR-FSE).
I do wonder how hard it would be to get a windscreen. I’ve heard horror stories of people waiting 3-4 months for shipping on the much-rarer Toyota Century… I probably should pay for windscreen coverage with my insurance company now I think of it.
Who are you and what have you done with David Tracy?
That seat looks new.
This is the part I have to be very sanguine about with the Marea. Say for example I take a rock to the windshield. There is no replacement. There is lexan, and that’s it. I can’t walk into O’Reilly’s and get an oil filter, nor can I call up my lovely wholesale suppliers. I know this because I tried. It’s a whole internet faff to get an exceedingly simple part because it only was used for Fiats, Lancias, and a couple Alfas in the 90s, none of which we got. Speaking of Lancias, my Scorpion has tired suspension. The fix is coilovers because that’s what still exists for the car. While the vintage Italian parts bin is delightfully deep, not everything crosses to everything else, and your luck does occasionally run out. The thing is, I bought both of these cars knowing 100% that ownership would not be like owning a vintage Corvette or something. I didn’t buy them for the ease, I bought them for the love. I accept that I have chosen “hard mode,” but I refuse to buy anything easy because it doesn’t make my heart sing.
Circa 2018 I needed to replace one of the two CHMSL bulbs in my Econoline, but one of the screws holding the cover on was stripped to hell. My mechanic said removing it would require breaking the lens.
Wildly, they had to source a lens used somewhere. Was weird to think of that as being an out-of-production part.
Valid points, but I am having a hard time seeing what’s wrong with your i3’s seat. I mean I guess I see it, but it’s not like super visible. You will probably never be able to un-see that minor flaw.
Try not to drag your wife into this stuff. I heard a new rattle in our ’74 GC and it was driving me nuts. I said to my wife “do you hear that?” She hadn’t noticed until I brought it up. And then she couldn’t unhear it either.
If you buy a new car, the first scratch or door ding is so painful. If you want (relatively) stress-free driving, buy a used car and just not sweat its cosmetics. I have always tried to keep my vehicles
Back in the 70s, I bought a used Peugeot and within a year, it got hit at low speed by three different people, inflicting minor damage to fenders. I was so underpaid then that I used the money they gave me for repairs for beer money. Driving a banged-up car around Berkeley and San Francisco was so liberating. I only had to worry about someone whose car looked worse when dealing with congestion. But someone in a nice Porsche or Jaguar was not going to go up against me, because my car had already seen some stuff.
“Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose…”
Short video about an obscure French/German sports car (a Deutsche-Bonnet with an air-cooled Panhard flat two engine) where the owner mentions flying to France to pick up a windshield from some guy just outside of Paris; he actually hand-carried it all the way from Paris to the US, even on the plane (apparently he had to buy an extra ticket so he could have a seat for it on the plane): https://youtu.be/GQT94wgjgoo?si=q_DLZtDSloIgfroO
There was a time in my life that I bought vehicles based on junkyard availability
That was part of the reason I picked a BMW E30 to race in Lemons back when I started in 2008. Unfortunately it hasn’t worked out for me because now they’re rare and hard to find in junkyards.
Yeah, this methodology leans heavily toward ‘mericun rustware. It’s just a numbers game, really.
You’ll regret selling that J10. My God I would love for one in that condition to show up that I could afford.
It’s a huge ass-pain owning anything older that doesn’t have a massive following, or was produced in enormous numbers. My ’95 K2500? As Tracy said, a fuckin cake walk. My Tracker? HAH! Suzuki is gone from the US an I get to suffer the consequences. Even our incredibly mass market 2011 Escape is getting a little annoying. I needed to order a new rear window seal, and the FOMOCO part was recently completely discontinued.
Seat “damage” … where?
Poor babies. From my father, I inherited a 1954 Kaiser Manhattan two door. Yes, there are some engine, chassis and body parts to be had… but not much of anything else. Two door bits and the trim to go with are quite dear if they can be found, and anything that isn’t a normal wear item just isn’t unless you are lucky.
I have a rather unique situation with my ’88 200SX SE V6. The SE is the rarest version of the S12 200SX in terms of how many were built. The number is somewhere around 7,500 between ’87 & ’88. But that means that many parts are easier to get, because the VG30E used in this model is a much more widely-used engine than the CA20E and CA18ET used in other 200SX’s and 200SX Turbos. I’ve used 300ZX parts, Maxima parts, I even currently have an A/C belt tensioner from a ’98 Frontier.
Of course this only applies to driveline parts. Body and interior bits are much more difficult, as are things like brake calipers which are model-specific. It’s why I tend to hoard parts. If you go into my crawlspace you’ll find numerous plastic bins full of S12 parts, not to mention the boxes in the garage, or the hoods, doors and an entire hatch leaning up against the garage walls.
This is yet another reminder to start stocking up on Evo parts. Mainly the Evo specific bits. Anything shared with the base Lancer is probably not as difficult, but even those might be starting to get scarce. I already can’t get the OEM flywheel and front and rear fascias.
“what’s the point of a truck if I can’t use it?”
Double parking, tailgating (not the fun kind) and changing lanes without signaling is the main purpose of trucks where I live so I think you’re all set
You had me worried for a while there, until I got to the last paragraph.
A 1985 J10 says more about you than a dime-a-dozen Chevy. That’s why we choose to drive rare cars.
I tend to watch for deals on parts I -may- need someday, in the case of my 1-in-700-or-so ’78 El Camino SS 350-/4speed (project) I have a whole spare car. Not so lucky on my 1/602 Camaro or 1/350 kit car, yet, although Chevy re-pops are very available.
There’s a case to be made for having a common expendable vehicle for a daily-driver, like not having to cry too much when there’s a collision or theft. However, that does mean you’re giving in to being like everybody else. If your trademark is being a (real) car person you have to think about that sort of thing. (Long live Gray Baskerville.)
My ’94 Dodge pickup daily, nicely restored, is a good compromise between being old enough to be interesting but still very easy to get anything for.
I make part of my living from having tooled up for certain long-discontinued car parts. That’s how that stuff works, somebody identifies enough of need and figures out how to fill it. For two brake drums that there’s no market for otherwise, you’d be better-off retrofitting from something else.
I own a 1977 305 Chevy Monza Spyder and a 2001, Camaro Z28 here in New Zealand. These are the only cars I own, with the Camaro getting driven the most. Although I can get mechanical bits for both cars fairly easily (but expensively since our dollar currently buys 56c US), panel parts are a whole different issue. The Monza in particular has no real aftermarket parts back up. That aside, panel parts for either car (assuming they’re available), take 18 days from LA to Auckland, plus all the faff either side of that. Driving either of them is a bit of a roll of the dice. Luckily I walk to work…
That’s funny on the Monza, the Super H body cars (Monza, Skyhawk, Starfire, Sunbird) were everywhere here in the states, but they all seemed to have completely disappeared from the face of the planet and is rare to see one now. I drove a 77 Skyhawk for 1981-1989.
Yeah, every episode of chips had at least one Monza! (usually yellow from memory). No exaggeration – we have more of them here as race cars than road cars.
Here’s the cure for your seat:
Sweater shaver.
After this – Acceptance that any vehicle that is being driven will show signs of wear.
Which is why I am not replacing the dirty “Stone” cream/beige seatbelts in my Mercedes.
But will eventually get around to redying the leather seats and worn steering wheel.
I feel that. I have a 1995 BMW 540i/6, which was one of like 1500 factory 6-speed manual 540i’s made in the E34 generation. To make it rarer, mine is a dark metallic blue and has an M-Sport bumper + 3.15 LSD, both of which are NLA and extremely expensive to replace if you can find them used. The heated memory sport seats are also extremely expensive to replace, as a destroyed set typically goes for $1200+ and gets bought up almost instantly. That being said, it has 290k miles on it, so I don’t feel tooooo bad daily driving it 84 miles a day.