Nightmare came through: Bus hit and almost wrecked my brand new F12. Pictures.

I'm physically OK. And this is what happened last Saturday:
While driving the middle lane (of 3) on one of the expressways outside Oslo, Norway, I was passing a bus who drove in the right lane. The speed was 100 km/h (62 mph).
Suddenly the bus makes a fast manoeuvre to the left and hits me in the right door. My car was pushed towards the left lane while I tried to stabilize it and make the nose point forward to avoid new collisions with the left lane traffic. Thanks to the heavy car and all the electronic helpers the car was (with some help from me....) brought to a safe standstill along the road.

When getting out of the car I had shattered glass all over me, in my pockets, in my hair, shoes and of course all over the car interior. But not a single scratch on me.
The bus stopped behind me, and a Danish car with two very gentle guys who had witnessed it all also stopped. They gave me their names and phone numbers and made sure I was not injured.
The bus driver had some explanation for his manoeuvre that did not interest me much. But he was very unhappy and a bit confused or shocked, so I did not yell at him. We filled in the insurance report and he continued his route.

I called the BMW assistance number, and after 45 minutes a truck came and picked up the car. BMW assistance called nearby car rentals, and after another hour and a short taxi ride I was sitting in a replacement car. A Volvo V70. So the weekend tour to our family place up in the mountains could continue.

About the Volvo: This is the perfect car for people who don't mind synthetic steering, hate curves, hate overtaking and don't care about engine figures. Basically hate driving. But love quality plastic.
It is a safe car though.

There are a few things I noticed which I think is useful knowledge. I bring them further to you guys:

- The F12 and F13 has got critisism for its weight. Well, I am happy the car gave the bus a tough match and still was possible to control in high speed and heavy traffic. I am especially happy I did not drive my Mini (not to mention the Smart), which would have been thrown over to the next lane or even the lane of oposite direction.
- The car did a great job stabilizing itself while I was steering as hell.
- Only the side airbags on the right side were activated (seems reasonable)
- The anti roll bars behing the rear seats blew off (you can se them activated on the pictures)
- There was an intense smell of gun powder......
- It popped up a lot of messages on the iDrive screen but I did not focus on them

Thank you God and BMW engineers that I am sitting here without any injuries.
What makes me sad is that a heavily repaired car probably will never be the same. What about future rust in parts that are repaired instead of changed? What about structural strength, regarding collision safety in the future? How do they bring back the balance of a fine tuned and delicate chassis construction with sledgehammers and manual welding?

Sad days are here

Wow - what a complete bummer about the wreck.
Good to have the witnesses and presumably the bus company has decent insurance to defray any financial costs. Maybe you will get lucky and the car will enough frame or chassis damage or such extensive repair costs that the insurance company will decide to total it, and you can get another new one... might not be very likely given the high replacement value, but here's to hoping for you! Not sure about the insurance recovery rules and laws in your country, but here in the States some sophisticated insurance claimants have been able to claim "diminution of value" for a wrecked but repaired car as the wreck may hurt the future resale value.

Glad to hear you and your car handled the wreck great and you're not hurt - everything else can be replaced!

Sorry to see your new baby smashed up like that but glad you are OK.

That is a huge hit, you did a great job keeping the car pointed in the right direction, electronics can only do so much. Hopefully the repair is quick and you are out of that Volvo ASAP.

You mentioned the bus drove off after exchanging info. Did police show up to do an accident report?

Glad you're ok. Extremely glad you weren't in the Smart. I've seen those wrecked,generally speaking there's nothing left of them.

Glad you're OK.

Originally Posted by Superschnell

About the Volvo: This is the perfect car for people who don't mind synthetic steering, hate curves, hate overtaking and don't care about engine figures. Basically hate driving. But love quality plastic.

Sorry for your accident and very glad you were able to walk away without a scratch. Good luck getting all this sorted out.

sorry to hear about the accident. atleast you are ok

Glad you're OK! That looks like it was quite the tumble.

Such a gorgeous car. Body shops here can work some pretty amazing magic. They have precision tools that can straighten frames out to within 0.1mm, etc. As for strength, it is likely there will be some weakening in the members but they will still be strong enough for the car.

She'll be right as rain soon. Good luck!

Originally Posted by gregb

Wow - what a complete bummer about the wreck.
Good to have the witnesses and presumably the bus company has decent insurance to defray any financial costs. Maybe you will get lucky and the car will enough frame or chassis damage or such extensive repair costs that the insurance company will decide to total it, and you can get another new one... might not be very likely given the high replacement value, but here's to hoping for you! Not sure about the insurance recovery rules and laws in your country, but here in the States some sophisticated insurance claimants have been able to claim "diminution of value" for a wrecked but repaired car as the wreck may hurt the future resale value.

Glad to hear you and your car handled the wreck great and you're not hurt - everything else can be replaced!

Insurances work quite well in Norway. However after a first inspection the damage is not big enough to total the car. Then repair cost would have to be at least 60% of car value. The car has a new price of NOK 1500000 (USD 300000), so the repair cost would have to be at least USD 180000. Which it is not going to be.

During Mondays visit at the repair shop I spoke with both the manager and the repair guy, asking how they do the job. Showing interest in their work probably makes them do a better job. Besides it is interesting to me to see the work evolving!

Originally Posted by Yorgi

You mentioned the bus drove off after exchanging info. Did police show up to do an accident report?

Over here you only call the police if people are hurt. Since there was only material damage, the bus driver and I sorted everything out on our own.

Originally Posted by Superschnell

The car has a new price of NOK 1500000 (USD 300000)

...what 9-9-9 would do to us!

Originally Posted by Superschnell

Insurances work quite well in Norway. However after a first inspection the damage is not big enough to total the car. Then repair cost would have to be at least 60% of car value. The car has a new price of NOK 1500000 (USD 300000), so the repair cost would have to be at least USD 180000. Which it is not going to be.

During Mondays visit at the repair shop I spoke with both the manager and the repair guy, asking how they do the job. Showing interest in their work probably makes them do a better job. Besides it is interesting to me to see the work evolving!

So the 6er costs 3 times as much in Norway as it does in the US? You must be quite the bank roller!

Originally Posted by petriej

So the 6er costs 3 times as much in Norway as it does in the US? You must be quite the bank roller!

Base price for the 640i Cabriolet without any extras is USD 232000 according to todays exchange rate. Cars are heavily taxed here, based on engine output, consumption and emissions.
Having such a huge interst in cars like I have, buying an expensive one is a question of will

Originally Posted by Superschnell

Insurances work quite well in Norway. However after a first inspection the damage is not big enough to total the car. Then repair cost would have to be at least 60% of car value. The car has a new price of NOK 1500000 (USD 300000), so the repair cost would have to be at least USD 180000. Which it is not going to be.

During Mondays visit at the repair shop I spoke with both the manager and the repair guy, asking how they do the job. Showing interest in their work probably makes them do a better job. Besides it is interesting to me to see the work evolving!

Do whatever you can to get it totalled. You don't want that car back: do you want to drive it and/or have to deal with selling it?

Get a check (cheque) and buy a new car.

Glad you're OK!

Hope all works out well.

Originally Posted by Superschnell

Over here you only call the police if people are hurt. Since there was only material damage, the bus driver and I sorted everything out on our own.

I find it strange that no police are necessary in large accidents like this. Insurance aside, shouldn't the bus driver get some sort of traffic ticket for causing a major accident? It was pure luck (plus good driving) that no one was hurt or worse.

Originally Posted by Yorgi

I find it strange that no police are necessary in large accidents like this. Insurance aside, shouldn't the bus driver get some sort of traffic ticket for causing a major accident? It was pure luck (plus good driving) that no one was hurt or worse.

I agree about the bus driver deserving a ticket. But as long as the vehicles didn't cause any traffic jam, no people were hurt and we sorted it out in peace, the police give preference to crime and more severe accidents.
But you gave me an idea. I should report the bus driver. He really deserves a ticket.

I applaud your country's police priorities....

Originally Posted by Leslierc

...what 9-9-9 would do to us!

I thought the same thing lol

What are the developments? Is the frame straight? Can they fix it, or will they total it? Hope you get good news.

Originally Posted by GreyCoupe

I applaud your country's police priorities....

Also, to the best of my knowledge, No Fault insurance is common in Europe. (I have no specific knowledge of Norway) Having the police arrive where there are no injuries and there is no necesssity to determine fault renders an accident report a fruitless task.

Brutal...

Thanks be to God you made it out ok.

Originally Posted by anythingbuttime

Also, to the best of my knowledge, No Fault insurance is common in Europe. (I have no specific knowledge of Norway) Having the police arrive where there are no injuries and there is no necesssity to determine fault renders an accident report a fruitless task.

We have no fault insurance here in Ontario. It only affects who pays for the collision and how much you can sue for. No fault insurance does not have any affect on criminal code. You run a red light, make an unsafe lane change, you still get charged and receive points on your license.

If you remove punishment for negligent driving the roads would be chaos. You could just drive around plowing into anyone you felt like.

I visited the body shop today of curiousity and to show interest. I spoke with the owner (who is a former professional rally driver) and the mechanic. It seems I have picked the right place to fix the car, since the owner is a great BMW enthusiast and they only repair Porsche and BMW. I also got recommendations of this body shop.

I told them earlier not to rush the repair and it turned out that they had not done too much so far. The most damaged areas are stripped down and new parts are ordered. They seem to have an eye on details: A complete dash board and new seats are ordered, due to glass scratches on the leather (which I could not see myself without strong focusing).

It turns out that they do not repair for a fix price. They bill the insurance company after actual costs (they have a certain authorisation to do that). Which is a good thing for me.

The owner did not foresee any major problems about the repair. He expained to me that the convertible design had prevented larger damage: Deep inside the door sills, from wheel arc to wheel arc, there is a thick steel tube that has the stiffening function a roof otherwise has. They had not finished examining the tube yet, but it is probably not bent or damaged. The car has a lot of measure points through out the chassis and body, so they find out if anything is out of tolerance.

I took some pictures to show the place and the details I found interesting.
I'll make another update later on.

Looks like they'll take care of it! I like the 3 door 1-series on the lift above yours . Kinda scary how it's RIGHT above yours, though