I just rolled my z3 over 3 times on a mountain road. Luckily I walked away injury free and the car still runs.

I want to strip or dispose of the car without the insurance or the state knowing. Can I just let the registration expire and take my insurance off the vehicle and thats that? Or do I HAVE to notify the police and insurance company?

The car is totaled minus the engine, transmission, brakes, and steering works. The chassis is tweaked and so is the frame. The cost to repair it will exceed the value of the car significantly. Luckily, the car was able to drive (and avoided cops on the road) and I didn't need a tow truck to tow it. Luckily the police wasn't involved and the insurance company doesn't know. I'd like to keep it that way if I can.

I have a few options now.

(1) take it to a salvage yard and be done with it.

(2) Part it out and then TOW it to a salvage yard

(3) Sell the whole car as a parts car and the buyer would take the pink slip and drive/tow it away for $1000.

Any suggestions/thoughts? Thankyou.

Twinky,

Last week on my way home from visiting my Uncle David, Aunt Cindy and his daughter while they were down camping from Michigan, I had to drive down a very narrow and winding road called 125 for about 35 miles. It was pouring down the rain and water was standing on the road. As I approached a sharp left turn going down a large hill, a 2003 BMW 328i Sedan driven by some kid that looked 20 if that was coming up the same hill. He was a good 3 feet on my side of the road. There is no shoulder on 125, only a ditch, which was full of water. I had to brake hard, fast and go far right to avoid getting hit. The car fishtailed down the hill as I fought to control it, the ABS was on full alert and I couldn't steer fast enough to straighten the car out. The BMW driver never tried to move over, brake or anything. For reference, I was going 35 on this curve, 10 less than its suggested speed limit, the BMW was going at least 65. Due to his irresponsible actions, I almost lost my Solara and myself.

I'm not saying that what happened to you was your fault or anything, I'm just saying don't drive like you or your car is indestructible, because neither you nor your car are. Until last week, I had supreme confidence in my driving skills, but after that incident and the speeding ticket I subsequently got that same day for exceeding the speed limit by 13 mph on a very long downhill stretch of road on which my cruise control canceled itself without my knowledge, I'm a lot more cautious about my driving. It also didn't help that while I was driving through the camp ground the day before, I misjudged the height of a drop off while driving off the trail to the camper and did a little Dukes of Hazzard stunt with my Solara. I kind of whacked the bottom frame rail of my car on a concrete slab as I drove off of it and made some sparks, luckily no damage was done.

Ultimately what has made me cautious like I should have been all along is the fact that Uncle David had a long conversation with me that made me realize several truths: I don't want to hurt anyone else, I don't want to hurt myself, and I don't want to hurt those who love me like my Uncle David because of something stupid that I did in a car.

Please remember that when you get behind the wheel of a car next time.

Sell the car for parts or sell the parts and tow it to a salvage yard. Then cancel it on your insurance.

The only problem is getting another car without the insurance money from the BMW, unless you have some extra cash laying around, then it shouldn't be a problem.

I express my personal thanks to you Contour

I had driven a little stupid that night, about a week ago. I had just worked on my car for 4 days and wanted to enjoy the fruits of my labor. Anyhow, no need to go into detail, I'm just happy that I didn't roll off the side of the mountain. I oversteered around a right hander, found out that at the end of the turn, it was followed by a left hander. I corrected/overcorrected to go around the left hander, oversteered, hit the edge of the road which was bordered by a lip. That lip acted as a tire chalk and initiated the rollover. Rolled over 3 times, landed on the wheels and the car was able to drive, but not very well.

My only concern is getting rid of the car part specifically without insurance and registration notification. Can I take the car to a junkyard without the me being harassed that the car wasn't reported as wrecked? Can I sell the car as a parts car and giving the "new owner" my pink slip without the car being reported as wrecked?

In Ohio you can drive the car to the junkyard, sign the title to them and then report to the DMV that the car was junked. They don't ask why. Most of the time cars are junked because the engine blew up or the transmission failed and it cost more than the car was worth to repair it.

I don't know if you can do that in CA, but what you can do is sell the parts off the car and then have it junked, just tell the junkyard that the car had mechanical issues and you sold the parts to various people because you couldn't afford to fix it. I understand why you don't want to tell insurance or the DMV what happened. If you report it, you might have to take points on your license for failure to control (4 points here) and your insurance will go up for sure.

Sorry to hear about the car - at least you are OK.

Be really tough to pull the engine and transmission without a lift. You can either pluck the engine and transmission from the top or drop them from the bottom (assuming you got the chassis up high enough).

Not sure what the BMW engines and transmissions weight, but I would guess they are not something you can manhandle easily. Shipping them is a little easier than pulling them out - if you have a pallet and some blocks - you can set the whole works on a pallet. Then that pallet can be shipped, via freight - cost will depend on the shipping company. I've seen them shipped as low as a few hundred to several hundred easily.