I am in the process of restoring a 1988 BMW 750iL. I put it in a storage facility until I could afford to do the work, and until recently, all was well. My car sustained minor VANDALISM. That's right. Somebody molested my BMW. Pictures are below. Thankfully, all they did was rip the fuel door off (it's nowhere to be found - I looked). But I was just outraged at the principle of the thing. It would be one thing if I had ticked somebody off, cut them off in traffic, etc. Sadly, BMW envy has resulted in more than one beautiful car getting its paint damaged by keying or other vandalism. What's particularly striking about this is that my car nor myself did anything (to my knowledge) to warrant this kind of violence against an automobile. It wasn't blocking anyone in or out. It had a whole section of the wall all to itself, not harming or bothering a soul. It's sad that there are a (thankfully) small number of people that just don't have any concept of respect for another person's property: if it ain't yours, you don't f**k with it! (Pardon my french). Most people would not want to see their loved ones or cherished material things screwed with. Totally understandable. Which is why it's baffling when those few knuckleheads out there can't relate to respecting what belongs to someone else. Irate tirade over. I rode 10 miles on the bus, then 14 miles on my bicycle to see my baby today, and then another 6 on that same bicycle to visit a friend. All in all, I was mostly relieved to see that my prized car suffered no further indignities than to have a small piece of her body callously RIPPED from her hindquarter panel. No one should have to experience having a chunk of skin ripped from their body. Especially if you did nothing to warrant such a barbaric act. Sorry people. I'm kind of tripping right now. Hope everyone understands. I don't have much in the line of material possesions, and even though not currently running, this is still the nicest, classiest vehicle I have ever owned. I do what I can with this car under current conditions, but no one should have to experience this to their personal property.
Shame on them... It always kills me to walk by a vehicle of any marque that has been vandalized... especially keyed. Long before I was a BMW owner, I was walking across a college campus and witnessed an individual walking past a BMW with an open sunroof. He exclaimed "Look, the worlds most expensive garbage can!" and threw his bag of fast food trash into it. Probably little if any damage done, but the lack of respect for another's belongings just shocked me.
If you are paying to keep your car there, you may have a claim against the owner of the facility. Research 'bailment' laws in your state. Failing that, I hope you have insurance coverage for comprehensive damage. That should cover something like this.
This storage facility states in lease no responsibility for vandalism My lease specifically states no responsibility by the management for loss, damage, theft, fire, etc. Purchase of property insurance is encouraged but not required. I need to get it to a safer place. Update: Property manager says a strong wind blew it off the car. The fuel door lock was not engaged due to a stuck mechanism I knew about. I am skeptical of the wind claim due to my own experience with the strength of the plastic hinge, but I do know it's possible to have the flap open in a strong breeze. I doubt the wind could have ripped it off the car. Still, she said she put the flap inside the car. I will inspect the flap for damage the next time I visit the vehicle. Personally, it still seems more plausible for the door to have been ripped from the car by human hands and tossed aside than for the wind to tear it off these vehicles. Wasn't going to dispute with the property manager, as she's gone out of her way at times to make sure the car was OK. More than likely, it's possible she was trying to claim it was wind damage to avoid liability or perhaps she was concerned other tenants might not feel secure renting there if they thought a criminal element was vandalizing property there.
What can you say?? People today in this country are a-holes with little-no respect for anyone else or their property. People today are too self-absorbed and have so much self-importance that nobody else matters to them. I see this every day on my way too-from work on a major highway in New Jersey (clearly the flagship state for obnoxious people, a containment area for schmucks if I ever saw one! ). Add this to the fact that there's a general lack of personal responsibility, and this is the result. Sorry about your car...good luck in finding a better storage site!
Hey, hey, hey, just a minute there. (Wait--is this an obnoxious reply...? *pouf* <disappears in a puff of logic>) bcweir: My condolences and good luck finding a better home for your baby. At least you can take some comfort in knowing it could have been far worse. Five seconds' work by a vandal could have easily cost you far more than a filler door.
Further investigation suggests that wind damage was probably the culprit after all Thanks for everyone's support. The property manager has stated that she has recovered the fuel filler door and placed it in the car. When I first visited the car, vandalism seemed to be the most plausible cause. I had no other information or no reason to suspect it wasn't. New information that has come in is lending more credibility to wind damage as the cause. It seems the damage is easily repairable.
I was surprised too. I consulted an expert on the E32, and he explained that a weak point of the fuel door is the plastic hinges. I was already having a problem with the locking mechanism for it. It wouldn't lock the fuel door. So the door wasn't secured and wasn't flush with the body the way it's supposed to. This problem I knew about. Quite likely, the hinge weakened over time -- the same way a paper clip or a coat hanger will snap if you repeatedly bend it in the same place.
Man, sorry to hear your troubles (particularly because a part of me wants a cool Autobahn cruiser like yours). How 'bout this angle: I just bust my wrist falling off my bicycle (rear tire blow-out descending Mt. Diablo). Your vandalism and my wrist could have been a lot, lot, lot worse. We are both very lucky.
Sorry to hear about the damage. Hurry up and get the bad boy back on the road, I still think it's one of the best looking BMWs ever made and, trust me on this one, there are way too many ugly cars on the road right now - a nice E32 is a breath of fresh air.
Definitely! I will keep you posted. When I got this thing, it had 215k on it and it ran like a swiss watch (seriously!). It still had a few bugs in it (the gauges needed 5 minutes to warm up before turning on, and the trip odometer would reset to 0's after turning the car off -- fixed the issue by replacing five capacitors in the cluster about two months before the car died. Gauges all work now and so does the odometer. I replaced all the bulbs too. Anyway, I was barely out of Jacksonville, and the car was driving so quiet and smoothly I thought I was doing a legal 70 mph on the interstate. Well I glanced down at the speedo and JEEZUS!! It was reading 110 mph!! OMG! My 1981 320i would have been screaming at 4K at such speeds and would have SOUNDED fast. Instead, the V12 was barely loafing along at 1,000 RPM at such speeds. Freaked me out that the car was going that fast with no audible or vibratory hints at its speed. Needless to say, I backed off the gas right away and had to keep an eagle eye on that needle ever since. What an impression for a car to make on its new master right? This car makes it way too easy to get into high-speed trouble on the highway! With most BMW's, it's not hard either, but depending on the model, requires varying degrees of effort.
Hay HAY HAY...I *live* here in the "great" Socialist Republic of NJ (SRNJ) - have my whole life - so I am keenly aware of that which I speak. Present company excluded, of course!!
Shortly after my dad got his, I borrowed it one night and my best memory of the time was when I was sitting at a traffic light, car was as quiet as could be and the guy next to me in a '90 or '91 Mustang GT decided to race (I was young and for once had almost 300hp at my disposal). The look on the guy's face was priceless but the most amazing thing was that the 750 didn't even break a sweat. It just went and effortlessly took care of that Mustang. I remember thinking how quiet, refined and fast this beast was - especially compared to my Corrado. There's a reason C&D labeled the 750iL the best car in the world back then when compared to the MB 560SEL, Bentley Turbo R and the Lexus LS400.
Wow! Great story! This car reminds me of Muhammad Ali (in his heyday) in a tuxedo: don't let the slick suit fool you -- there's plenty of muscle underneath. The late 80's early 90's Fox Mustang used to be my favorite car as a teenager -- years before I discovered BMWs. Those Mustangs were fast, but precious little room in the backseat, which themselves were a pain to get to in a two door bodystyle. Lots more rear leg room in my 750iL. Making Mustangs look like fools is probably not what BMW had in mind, but it's nice to hear that your dad's car dispatched your stoplight rival with class! Put the switch in Sport, and the 750iL is ready to hand out an a$$-whupping by the six-pack (or should I say TWELVE-pack)! Without putting any sweat on the tuxedo.
Oh, nevermind then, it's all good. (And the keen observer will note that I never said you were wrong. ) Fox Mustangs vs. BMW: An '88 GT was my first brand-new car, back in the day...what a fun, quick, crude, refreshing little beast that was, after soooo many years of abysmal Mustangs. I have absolutely no doubt a 750iL would have made a dog's breakfast of it, too, since the big V12 sedan and the shark-nose Dinan M6 were at the top of my automotive lust-list for many years. Those were closely followed by the (more realistically possible) RX-7 Turbo II that, mercifully, I never did acquire.
Don't get me wrong, I love Mustangs (owned 2 GTs and despite all the abuse at autocrosses and driver's ed school, they never once required anything other than scheduled maintenance) but that night I was on top of the world and I'm sure it was a little humbling for the Mustang driver too - teach him not to race every single car thinking he would win every time.
For that matter, don't underestimate ANYTHING. For all you know, that Honda Civic might be hopped up with 300 hp!
Actually, I think both would be about 1000-1500 rpm higher. 320i-era M10s were generally geared at around 1000 rpm/20 mph, or 5000 rpm @ 100 mph. The V12 is probably a little more than half that, or around 2500-3000 at 100. But the principle is the same. Lotsa' power in a luxo-barge compared to not much in a bottom-end sedan.
I think you're right CR. I still miss my 320i That 1981 320i had an interesting personality. The 1.8L M10 was actually quite docile until it reached 4k, regardless of vehicle speed, and then it became "the mouse that roared!" I think you're right about the rpm's being about 1,000 rpms higher though. That M10, although it would be as ancient as stone knives and arrowheads these days, was IMHO, one of BMW's best all-time engines. I believed it played a crucial role in putting the 2002 where it is now, despite being a tick or two slower in the E21 body. Power output from the M10 was pretty mild in the 1980 and later 3-series, but one could still hop it up to around 140 or 150 hp with the right mods, and another 20 to 30 on top of that with turbocharging. BMW needs another fun four-cylinder engine like this. By the way, the V12 idles at less than 500 rpm. My M10 idled around 800 rpm. With the M10 four cylinder, I could easily get it past 4k on the tachometer and stay within legal speeds. With the V12, I'd be in legal trouble long before it ever got close to 4k. By the way, the original three speed automatic offered in the E21 pitifully squanders what power and torque that little engine had. I felt very lucky to have a 5 speed manual in mine.
