Chaos
28-07-2005, 01:58 PM
Remember this?
http://www.scions.org.uk/pigsticker/pics/car/front2.jpg
SSDD 05 CF splitter. Gorgeous bit of kit. Nice and low, sleek and beautiful, fitted to my new ride the same day I collected it in May, and so our story begins...
Step 1 - June 2005. On the spur of the moment I decide to nip into town and go to park at my usual multi-storey to do so. They have workmen there doing kerbstones as I arrive, so one entrance is coned off and the other is made narrower as the plebs have overlapped the cones into that lane. So I squeeze past them and... CRUNCH. http://sankeys.demon.co.uk/images/smilies/frown.gif They've placed the new kerbstones in the lane that's open aswell, but they're not fixed in yet and one is sticking out slightly. Cue a massive 4-inch scratch on the corner of the splitter. I park up and walk back to confront the idiots only to find that they've quickly walked over and straightened them all up. Couldn't even get a phone photo of the kerb cos it's now been pushed back into line. http://sankeys.demon.co.uk/images/smilies/mad.gif Trying to stay calm, I walk away and decide to call Ted and see if we can do anything with the scratch.
Step 2 - July 2005. 3 weeks later. I'm at my rally buddy's pad and we're sorting out our new car ready for a grass autotest that we're doing with the car club in Cheltenham. We've got some spare time and he's never driven an M, so I tossed him the keys and we went out for a blat around the countryside in the bright sunshine. We do 12-car night-nav rallies around the whole area so he knows these roads really well, so what was to happen was a surprise to both of us... We came down a long slope north of Prescott (be warned Paul!) and there was a long corner at the bottom. We were travelling at a pretty good lick and I realised a split second before it happened that he was gonna have to brake for the corner at pretty much the same point that the road bottomed out at the foot of the descent. The sound of me saying "Careful dude" accompanied the gonad-shrinking sound of carbon fibre splitter trying to plough a route through the hot tarmac. http://sankeys.demon.co.uk/images/smilies/frown.gif He was gutted, bless him, offered to buy me a new one and everything but I wasn't having any of that. It had already been scratched and anyway mates don't do that to mates, it was just one of those things. The splitter was fairly heavily damaged on the right hand side though and the leading edge on the front had been ground through so you could see a gap.
I decided, having spoken again to Teddy, to have the dealer take it off when the car was serviced on the 29/30th and get it filled and sprayed colour-coded as about the only option I had left. My life has changed significantly this last month and my finances are now going to be very tight for a couple of years, so I basically needed to minimise costs as much as possible. The splitter seemed to be ok as it was, and as long as I didn't hit it again I was confident that it would be ok on the car for the couple of weeks I needed it to hang on until I could get it taken off. How close it was to working out... I was one and a half journeys away from everything being ok... http://sankeys.demon.co.uk/images/smilies/frown.gif
Step 3 - Today. The boss had pissed me off twice this morning and I'd been out seeing a customer who wanted the moon on a stick aswell, so I wasn't in the best of moods and was driving fairly hard on the way back into the office. I was about 7 or 8 miles away and about to get onto the dual carriageway which leads right up to the office when I hear a burble alongside me. I look to my right and... silver E60 M5. http://sankeys.demon.co.uk/images/smilies/eek.gif The noise as we both took off was gobsmacking, mainly his noise not mine! I was already in the mood, so him tearing off was all the encouragement I needed and I hoofed it after him. Wasted isn't a stong enough word - he totally fried me (as you'd expect), but got caught when some dumbass pulled out on him and he had to brake. I caught him and the road cleared so we sat in a 1-2 formation and booted it down the bypass. 2 miles from the office, it happened. There's a slight bend, which was a bit more than slight at the speed we were going, and it has a little bump in the road for tarmac expansion (it's a flyover). I hit the bump without problem, then my heart sank as a now very familiar sound came from the front of the car and this time stayed. I knew instantly that the splitter had hit the tarmac and this time it was structural. http://sankeys.demon.co.uk/images/smilies/frown.gif
I pulled onto the hard shoulder and, sure enough, the 2 bolts on the right hand side had come through the fibreglass and the splitter had been forced under the bumper and into the road. Total f***ing mess. http://sankeys.demon.co.uk/images/smilies/frown.gif I tie-wrapped it onto the bumper and limped into the office. 20 minutes and 2 second opinions later, the conclusion was universal - the left hand side was still fine and flawless, the right hand side was totally shafted and was in about 3 seperate pieces hanging on by luck and a few bits of fibre. It was so stuffed that we couldn't even take it off by un-bolting. Already feeling like crying/screaming/shouting/swearing/punching someone/shooting the car, I closed my eyes and did the only thing that was left to do. One of the guys held a rag between the splitter and the bumper on the 'good' side, and I pushed my foot against it until I broke the rest of it off and almost £400 of splitter lay underneath where it had previously looked so gorgeous. I couldn't even bring myself to take a picture - hell, I'm only writing this as some sort of therapy.. http://sankeys.demon.co.uk/images/smilies/frown.gif
So, basically, the splitter is in the car at the moment, waiting for it's drive home to it's final resting place. I'm not sure what to do next, Dr Ted will be giving me a consultation tomorrow night anyway and I'm open to anyone else's suggestions. Money is still non-existant, not through choice as I and most of the crew will assure you as I'd had many plans for the baby which have now gone onto ice (no pun intended), but I need to do something as the bumper is fairly heavily scratched where the splitter rubbed against it so it's either another bit of bodywork or a respray - and resprays are boring. http://sankeys.demon.co.uk/images/smilies/tongue.gif I'm sorry this is such a long post. Maybe it's some kind of eulegy or something. It's really really depressing though, I was feeling down enough without this aswell, it's made for probably the worst month I can ever remember. http://sankeys.demon.co.uk/images/smilies/frown.gif Basically, mine was the only M3 Vert I knew of with the SSDD splitter fitted, and certainly the first Teddy sold to the public, and now it isn't. Gutted. http://sankeys.demon.co.uk/images/smilies/frown.gif
http://www.scions.org.uk/pigsticker/pics/car/front2.jpg
SSDD 05 CF splitter. Gorgeous bit of kit. Nice and low, sleek and beautiful, fitted to my new ride the same day I collected it in May, and so our story begins...
Step 1 - June 2005. On the spur of the moment I decide to nip into town and go to park at my usual multi-storey to do so. They have workmen there doing kerbstones as I arrive, so one entrance is coned off and the other is made narrower as the plebs have overlapped the cones into that lane. So I squeeze past them and... CRUNCH. http://sankeys.demon.co.uk/images/smilies/frown.gif They've placed the new kerbstones in the lane that's open aswell, but they're not fixed in yet and one is sticking out slightly. Cue a massive 4-inch scratch on the corner of the splitter. I park up and walk back to confront the idiots only to find that they've quickly walked over and straightened them all up. Couldn't even get a phone photo of the kerb cos it's now been pushed back into line. http://sankeys.demon.co.uk/images/smilies/mad.gif Trying to stay calm, I walk away and decide to call Ted and see if we can do anything with the scratch.
Step 2 - July 2005. 3 weeks later. I'm at my rally buddy's pad and we're sorting out our new car ready for a grass autotest that we're doing with the car club in Cheltenham. We've got some spare time and he's never driven an M, so I tossed him the keys and we went out for a blat around the countryside in the bright sunshine. We do 12-car night-nav rallies around the whole area so he knows these roads really well, so what was to happen was a surprise to both of us... We came down a long slope north of Prescott (be warned Paul!) and there was a long corner at the bottom. We were travelling at a pretty good lick and I realised a split second before it happened that he was gonna have to brake for the corner at pretty much the same point that the road bottomed out at the foot of the descent. The sound of me saying "Careful dude" accompanied the gonad-shrinking sound of carbon fibre splitter trying to plough a route through the hot tarmac. http://sankeys.demon.co.uk/images/smilies/frown.gif He was gutted, bless him, offered to buy me a new one and everything but I wasn't having any of that. It had already been scratched and anyway mates don't do that to mates, it was just one of those things. The splitter was fairly heavily damaged on the right hand side though and the leading edge on the front had been ground through so you could see a gap.
I decided, having spoken again to Teddy, to have the dealer take it off when the car was serviced on the 29/30th and get it filled and sprayed colour-coded as about the only option I had left. My life has changed significantly this last month and my finances are now going to be very tight for a couple of years, so I basically needed to minimise costs as much as possible. The splitter seemed to be ok as it was, and as long as I didn't hit it again I was confident that it would be ok on the car for the couple of weeks I needed it to hang on until I could get it taken off. How close it was to working out... I was one and a half journeys away from everything being ok... http://sankeys.demon.co.uk/images/smilies/frown.gif
Step 3 - Today. The boss had pissed me off twice this morning and I'd been out seeing a customer who wanted the moon on a stick aswell, so I wasn't in the best of moods and was driving fairly hard on the way back into the office. I was about 7 or 8 miles away and about to get onto the dual carriageway which leads right up to the office when I hear a burble alongside me. I look to my right and... silver E60 M5. http://sankeys.demon.co.uk/images/smilies/eek.gif The noise as we both took off was gobsmacking, mainly his noise not mine! I was already in the mood, so him tearing off was all the encouragement I needed and I hoofed it after him. Wasted isn't a stong enough word - he totally fried me (as you'd expect), but got caught when some dumbass pulled out on him and he had to brake. I caught him and the road cleared so we sat in a 1-2 formation and booted it down the bypass. 2 miles from the office, it happened. There's a slight bend, which was a bit more than slight at the speed we were going, and it has a little bump in the road for tarmac expansion (it's a flyover). I hit the bump without problem, then my heart sank as a now very familiar sound came from the front of the car and this time stayed. I knew instantly that the splitter had hit the tarmac and this time it was structural. http://sankeys.demon.co.uk/images/smilies/frown.gif
I pulled onto the hard shoulder and, sure enough, the 2 bolts on the right hand side had come through the fibreglass and the splitter had been forced under the bumper and into the road. Total f***ing mess. http://sankeys.demon.co.uk/images/smilies/frown.gif I tie-wrapped it onto the bumper and limped into the office. 20 minutes and 2 second opinions later, the conclusion was universal - the left hand side was still fine and flawless, the right hand side was totally shafted and was in about 3 seperate pieces hanging on by luck and a few bits of fibre. It was so stuffed that we couldn't even take it off by un-bolting. Already feeling like crying/screaming/shouting/swearing/punching someone/shooting the car, I closed my eyes and did the only thing that was left to do. One of the guys held a rag between the splitter and the bumper on the 'good' side, and I pushed my foot against it until I broke the rest of it off and almost £400 of splitter lay underneath where it had previously looked so gorgeous. I couldn't even bring myself to take a picture - hell, I'm only writing this as some sort of therapy.. http://sankeys.demon.co.uk/images/smilies/frown.gif
So, basically, the splitter is in the car at the moment, waiting for it's drive home to it's final resting place. I'm not sure what to do next, Dr Ted will be giving me a consultation tomorrow night anyway and I'm open to anyone else's suggestions. Money is still non-existant, not through choice as I and most of the crew will assure you as I'd had many plans for the baby which have now gone onto ice (no pun intended), but I need to do something as the bumper is fairly heavily scratched where the splitter rubbed against it so it's either another bit of bodywork or a respray - and resprays are boring. http://sankeys.demon.co.uk/images/smilies/tongue.gif I'm sorry this is such a long post. Maybe it's some kind of eulegy or something. It's really really depressing though, I was feeling down enough without this aswell, it's made for probably the worst month I can ever remember. http://sankeys.demon.co.uk/images/smilies/frown.gif Basically, mine was the only M3 Vert I knew of with the SSDD splitter fitted, and certainly the first Teddy sold to the public, and now it isn't. Gutted. http://sankeys.demon.co.uk/images/smilies/frown.gif