One dream car, which a garage turned into a nightmare.

Hello guys and welcome to mattsbeamer.

It was about 2005, and I was coming up to the age of 21. My dad was going through a few nice cars back then. Including a 2000 ACS M5, 2003 730d sport and a 2003 Mercedes SL500.

I really wanted a nice car, for when I was 21, I looked everywhere for a nice BMW. Late E36 328is e39s and my dream car, a e31 8 series. Unfortunately the insurance was too high.

I had always been a big fan of the e38 7 series too, which were much nicer than the Big Jaguar XJRs and the S55s that I considered to run beside my e30 325i touring.

Anyway a month before my 21st I found a 1997 R Reg 740i with the 4.4 V8. It was in a beautiful deep blue with cream leather seats. It was perfect.

The paintwork was almost spotless, the interior was very clean.

The car ran smooth, and strong. It was basically perfect.

It was a 1 owner car, who was a Doctor and it had all the full BMW service history.

I was so sure I wanted it.

The car ran sweet everytime I took her for a cruise.

It ran smooth till October. We had a heavy rain one day, and I was driving from my friends, to my house.

Now I am a rare BMW driver who uses his indicators, but they suddenly stopped working.

I pulled over because I was concerned.

I decided to drive her home, and use my arms as the indicators.

I got home and I parked the car up, and waited for the rain to stop.

When I got to the car, I got inside, and turned the key.

Click, click. Which usually means the battery is dying, so I took it out of the car, and put it on charge.

The next day I put it back on the car, and turned the Key.

The car would not react, so I called a man to scan my car.

The car wouldn’t recognise the key, so he said I need a new transponder ring, so the car could read the key.

He ordered, fitted and I paid, but it didn’t work.

We scanned the car again. While scanning the car this time we noticed the carpet was wet, which was not a good sign.

His scanner found lots of issues too, but it had to go to BMW to be scanned.

Back then it was about £140 for a scan, and it had to be taken on a lorry, as it was basically dead.

It turns out the Light Control Unit, the immobiliser and security system and the engine management system had been water damaged. The alarm had kept going off and undoing the windows and sunroof.

Basically the windscreen which the garage fitted was not fitted properly, and as a temporary fix, BMW wanted over £8000. My heart sank, because back then I could not afford to spend over 8000 on it.
I spoke to the garage I bought the car from, and they basically said tough luck (which stopped my dad using them, after spending £100,000s over the years, with them.

I had to make a tough descision and sell her as she was. I only got back about 25% on what I paid for her :(

I will continue the rest of the story, which ended up being quite odd. Lol.