Baby Wants a Ragtop (Reprise)

Posted Fri May 26, 2006 in Automotive

The last few days have been very busy. We have been looking at BMW automobiles intending to replace the 2003 F-150 Supercrew we’ve been driving. The truck was fun and it was useful over the three years we owned it. But, it just seemed like the right time to make a change. We finally settled on a 2003 BMW Z4 2.5i convertible as our vehicle of choice. Baby got her ragtop.

But, we weren’t done. I’ve been waiting to have some hail damage and a cracked windshield repaired on the BMW 325i family car. I didn’t have the time to make all the arrangements and ramrod the process through to completion last semester. We never seemed to quite have the deductible either—something else was always clamoring for the funds before we could get to the car.

Yesterday morning I woke, took care of a bunch of email and other tasks, and made a couple of phone calls. We decided to have Wally over at Dent Tech make the repairs. I called three automotive glass specialty houses for quotes for the windshield. The quotes ranged from $215 to $400. Wife and I drove the 325i over to Fisher to talk to the manager.

“I’m Dave Thompson and I called about the windscreen for the BMW 325i. Is the price really $215?”

“Yes, it is.”

“Are you sure? The other quotes I got were for $300 and $400. Your price seems awfully low. Our vehicle has a rain sensor for the automatic wipers.”

“Is the car here? The sensor should just pop off and we can put it on the new windshield.”

“Sure, it’s in the lot next door.” We walked over to the car. He checked the rain sensor.

“Yeah, it comes right off. We’ll put it on the new glass.”

Wife asked “What do you do about the stickers? Do we have to get replacements?”

“No, we move them over to the new windshield.”

We walked back into the office and made arrangements to have the glass replaced next week. So, the 325i gets a make-over next week and will be good as new.

Wife and I drove over to IHOP for a bite of breakfast. They were pretty well full, the waiting area was packed-out and no one took our name, so we left and drove to 82nd Street Cafe, around the block. They weren’t busy at all. We had some breakfast and talked while we ate.

We’ll finish up the paperwork on Wife’s Z4 either today or Tuesday. The 325i will be repaired next week. One side of our garage is nearly clear. A call to American Council for the Blind should draw a pick-up truck to haul off the remainder of the big pieces that prevent Wife from parking her car in the garage. I want her car in the garage—the 325i too, but that will require some additional work.

We still have some loose ends to tie up that have languished over the semester. I hope to have those handled by 1 June. That will clear a lot of items off my list. That will be good.

But, most of all, Wife got her convertible. She’s really going to enjoy her car. She loved the Sebring convertible—this is several times that car. A few images of the car are on my gallery.