I Officially Hate Deer

[Fisher99]

Managed to miss the first 2 deer but caught the rear end of the 3rd one on the front right corner of the car. Took it to a body shop and came away with an estimate of $7,500. A rather astounding $1,900 just for the LED headlight! Turned it in to my insurance company and am waiting to see what they say, but I'm guessing they will repair it rather than totaling it. That is my preference anyway. The car is in absolutely perfect condition. Or at least was before the deer incident.

Car is drivable although other than taking it to the body shop for the estimate I won't be driving it. On a somewhat humorous note, when I drive it it keeps complaining that the fuel filler flap (for the REX) is open. Heck yeah, it's open! It's completely missing!

 

[3pete]

Managed to miss the first 2 deer but caught the rear end of the 3rd one on the front right corner of the car. Took it to a body shop and came away with an estimate of $7,500.

Your butcher is quoting you way too much for deer jerky! :lol:

A rather astounding $1,900 just for the LED headlight!

In all seriousness though, this is one of those things I find amusing/sad/annoying:
BMW - These new LED headlights are the best technology out there, they allow you to see in the dark better than anything before and avoid all sorts of scary things!
Me - Wow, those sound really safe and will avoid accidents!
Insurance - Yeah, those headlights sound really expensive, we're going to raise your rates.

On a somewhat humorous note, when I drive it it keeps complaining that the fuel filler flap (for the REX) is open. Heck yeah, it's open! It's completely missing!

The i3 was originally meant to be a BEV before the American market corrupted it. Maybe it's trying to return to it's intended form!

PS - glad your deer encounter sounds "inconvenient" as opposed to anything worse!

 

[Deutsch100]

Oh no. I am so sorry! Glad you are ok, and hopefully your Rex gets fixed well. Make sure the shop knows how to level the LED lights. When they are misaligned, they are blinding.

BMW and BMW Group vehicles are insanely $$$ to repair. A few years ago we back our RR out of the garage and stupidly clipped the front of our Raptor truck. Raptor truck...almost no damage. RR...$40,000 :-O

 

[Fisher99]

Update: Insurance company did an estimate based solely upon the pictures that they had me upload to their system and came out about $2,500 lower than the estimate from my local body shop who actually examined the car. Let the dance begin...

 

[blackbelt]

Deer are just large rats. I was able to dodge them most of my life, but the last few years my luck ran out. In January 2018 I hit a deer with my 6 month old Jeep Renegade. $4200 in damage. In October 2018 i hit one with my Prius C. $3400 in damage. Both drivable, but damn that sucked.
Hope yours turns out OK.

 

[jadnashuanh]

I've come close a few times, and once, on White Sands Missile Range, had a close call with an Orix! Now, one of those will ruin your day! In upstate NY (apple orchard country), one night, something caught my eye, so I slowed, then stopped. In the next 10-seconds, 14 deer crossed the road in front of me. One winter, in a field near my house, the news reported over 200 deer in a huge herd. I've seen a few where I live now, but it's not as common as most of my miles are in an urban setting. I'd thought about the night vision, but decided against it...hoping my luck doesn't run out, but that's what insurance is for!

 

[Pahaska]

We have plenty of deer. Fourteen in our back yard this evening. The does, in particular, have learned to pretty much stay away from cars in our subdivision.

There are two periods each year when I really worry about hitting one. In the spring, the fawns haven't learned about cars. In the fall rutting season, they all go a bit crazy. In between, the hazards are fairly low.

 

[Fisher99]

Well, my car went into the shop on Monday and they are predicting that it will be done by the middle of next week. I really miss driving it and will be very happy to get it back!

 

[Fisher99]

So my car is still not fixed. It has been waiting on elves in the Black Forrest to build some electrical connectors (fuel flap release, frunk release, etc) that apparently got broken in the collision. They finally got the parts but now I just got a call from the shop today saying that the new LED headlight wasn't working properly so they called BMW and were told that it had to be calibrated by someone with BMW calibration tools. The closest BMW dealer is 60 miles away so they loaded it onto a flatbed and it is now sitting in the BMW dealer. The dealer quoted $500 for the calibration, which is either a rip off or they are doing more than the Collision shop is aware of, but at least my insurance has agreed to cover the cost. Sad thing is that, unknown to the collision shop, there is a guy who runs the auto shop for a local college who is an ex BMW mechanic and who has all of the BMW tools to do this stuff, and does it for MUCH cheaper than BMW does. They also found that the electronic door latch on the passenger side is no longer working so that will be replaced while it is at the BMW dealer, assuming the insurance company agrees.

So, it's now nearly a month since it went into the shop. The only good news is that it is inside and warm while we are currently having a huge snow storm, with temps in the low teens and an accumulation of 15" of snow on the ground. I couldn't drive the car home if they gave it to me. Well, that's not the only good news. As I reported in a thread in the "Modifications" forum, I was able to swap out the tiny single horn for a set of PIAA horns that I had already purchased and it was super easy with the entire front of the car torn off. ..

 

[Fisher99]

Wrapping up this thread. After nearly 7 weeks in the body shop I finally have my i3 back. The bill was a staggering $13,155 but fortunately covered by my insurance. I'm pretty sure that if they had known it was going to be this expensive they would have totalled it, but it just kept creeping up and they kept authorizing the increases, so pretty soon got to a point where they couldn't afford to turn back. They issue checks immediately so had already paid the body shop plus would have had to pay me if they totalled it, so they just kept paying the shop. Just looking at the damage there's no way I would have, in my wildest imagination, guessed that the cost would get this high.

I should note that included in this $13,155 was $700 to have it put on a flatbed and hauled to the nearest BMW dealer and back ($350 each way) and another $2,500 to the BMW dealer for calibrating the LED headling and also replacing the passenger side door handle and latch (comfort access). It's unclear how that got damaged in the accident but it was not longer working properly so got replaced.

Anyway, they did a great job and I'm happy to have it back home!

 

[EVMan]

If the insurance had totaled the car , how much money would they have given you ? current market price ?

I3 resale value is quite low, falls quickly and cost of repair is very high.
Extreme condition.

What would you have preferred , fixed car or money ?

Just curious. never been in such a situation.

 

[Fisher99]

I don't know what they would have given me if they had totalled it, but I'm assuming it would be fair market value, probably determined by KBB. In my case I definitely preferred having the car repaired because there was no structural damage that could possibly have changed the way the car drives or operates. Just cosmetic damage.