The more observant amongst you will note I've not been on here for a few weeks (quite a feat).
My last thread was all about what to do when I sold the M this year
http://www.zroadster.net/forum/viewtopi ... 31&t=36665
Well, since then life has taken a strange turn of events
Firstly, my Mrs has decided to leave me after 16 years despite the fact we were due to get married in June 2013:twisted:
And she won't even consider trying to work things out or go for counselling etc etc.Secondly, I took the M downto my old man's two weeks ago (in the throw of the above) on a Thursday night and ended up getting caught up in that god-damn awful weather over the Friday-Monday (approx 20th march) whilst running over the A623 between Baslow and Chapel-en-le Frith. I was travelling along at the back of a long queue (3 hgv and several cars) and made it round the famous S-bends at the Tideswell exit before the road opens up onto a 1 1/2 mile straight stretch. I remember thinking how I'd normally drop a gear and blast past the lot but on this occasion I opted to just sit behind the queue, discretion the better part of valour etc when suddenly I was looking at the back of the HGV in-front through the drivers side door window. Some snow had blown onto the road out of a farmers field creating a patch no longer than a Z and as the car hit that all was lost, even at 35mph max. I tried to opp' lock her hoping the front would bite but the traffic must have been dragging the snow along creating black ice or something? Anyway, couldn't correct at-all, zero-grip
and the back end just followed round until I was heading backward. Lost no speed whatsoever and the back end went onto the verge collecting loads of debris from a previous accident. The vehicle came to rest with its arse half way up a dry stone wall (rest of wall in a field) and virtually every panel had been hit by flying stones etc. I got out the car scaled the wall in several feet of snow and ripped out my 4 yo boy who was still asleep in the passenger seat. Rang police/insurance and a lift from my old man and waited for recovery, by which time it had started to snow again in the fearce wind and temps started to drop, now 4:15pm ish. Then (75mins after crash) RAC rang to say they were unable to send anyone due to volume of calls and passed me over to Mansfield recovery. At that point I emptied the car of 'everything' and locked it up and went back to my old-mans. The next day I opted for BMW to recover on their courtesy scheme and take her to my local BMW garage, thinking that's the best chance of getting the repairs done. The BMW recovery guy came down from York within a couple hours and picked me up from dads, then in amazingly bad conditions (unlike the conditions when I crashed) managed to get us up there and recover the car without further damage.
After a couple of days BMW rang to say it needed new exhaust £2500, r.control arm £750, fan cowl and front bumper + full re-spray. Total cost being £9500 (all figures with BMW giving 25% discount
). Anyway the car is a write-off, had confirmation from More Than (who have been pretty good 
) and I've had a good settlement offer which is hopefully coming this week. Me and the lad are OK too so every cloud 
The M is going to ?'Co-part'? or someone so anyone into repairing M's or wanting bits should contact them, so much new stuff on that car (Vanos, r springs/shocks, all bulbs in centre console and the analogue clock so if you need a console?, headlight switch etc etc.
Due to the split I'm gonna have to get a practical car in the short-term so I am gonna be selling a whole heap of spare parts so at the ready for when my post hits the stock exchange in the next 24h or so!!!!!!!
Now remember it was me who said in an earlier thread that "anyone who drives an M in bad weather wants their head looking at" - how right was I
, BMW Z1, BMW M3 CSL, Z4M Coupe
WTF it's taken 15 1/2 years to realise that 
...........No Mods...... I like him just the way he is 
.
