Yesterday, I discovered damage on the seat of my BMW i3S and was quite upset — so much so that my wife noticed I was bothered and told me she was sorry that I was so annoyed. That’s when I realized: Why am I – someone who rarely gets upset about anything – letting seat damage bother me? I’ve never in my entire life given even an inkling of a damn about a damaged seat, but now I do? The answer is simple: This BMW i3 seat is rare, and finding a replacement (or even just the fabric to repair it) is nontrivial.
And it’s not just my BMW i3. I also own a 1985 Jeep J10 pickup — one of only 1,500 built in 1985, and probably one of under 50,000 built with that generation of grille and interior. By now — 40 years later — the truck is hyper-rare.


This is not a good thing. It means that anytime I break an interior trim piece, or scuff the grille or bumper, or even see discoloration in the dash, I’m bothered.



I could have it much worse. Even though the specific trim of my i3 and J10 means certain bits are hard to find, at the very least it’s not too hard to find mechanical components, since both vehicles are — at least mechanically — largely identical to hundreds of thousands of other vehicles built on the same platform. My J10 shares many Jeep Grand Wagoneer components, my i3 is one of 250,000 i3s built worldwide. I’ll be able to at least keep these cars on the road, even if it means I have to fabricate my own AC vents.


But my friend Brandon has it worse. He has an absolutely stunning Jeep J4600 (that’s it below). It’s the heavy-duty version of my J10, but a bit older and with the cooler “Razor” grille. It’s going to be the perfect farm truck for him functionally speaking. It’s got a torquey V8 (rebuilt, thankfully), an unstoppable T18 four-speed transmission, and stump-pulling 4.10 axles. But there’s a problem: He simply cannot get new brake drums — I mean that they simply do not exist.

Check out this post on FSJ Network; someone is considering buying a 1971 Jeep J4600 like Brandon’s, and user tgreese replies:
The main issue for these mid-weight trucks with the Dana 60-2 (semi-full-floating) is the 12″x2″ brakes. The drums have been gone for decades
The parts have been gone for decades!
Luckily, Brandon’s drums are in good shape, and given that this is a farm Jeep, I bet he’ll never have to replace them. But still. What a pain in the ass if he does.
My colleague, Jason, drives a Nissan Pao, and though he can get replacement mechanical bits since the Pao is mechanically similar to a Nissan Micra, finding trim is tough. In fact, I had to bring him a vent window all the way from Hong Kong! Watch as a I battle a large huntsman spider in the video above.
This is the kind of stress I just don’t want in my life. I don’t want to have to track down (via a forum/Facebook group/swap meet) a tattered old “Muscle” grille for my Jeep J10, pay over $1000, and then have to worry about parking it in LA parking lots. I don’t want to have to worry about spilling something on my BMW i3 seats. Brandon doesn’t want to have to worry about using his brakes too much. And Jason can’t just send someone to Asia to snag Pao parts. This just isn’t worth it.


This is a major reason why I’m considering parting with my beloved Jeep J10 and keeping my 1989 Chevy K1500 4×4 five-speed. What use is that J10 if I have to baby it? Do I really need the stress of worrying about tearing my door panel or cracking my AC vents or busting my grille? What if someone dings my front bumper; where am I going to get a replacement?
Meanwhile, that Chevy? I can get any part I want for it for nothing. I won’t even care if someone bangs into my bumper or if I break my grille — it just doesn’t matter. Look at how insanely cheap a new rear bumper is:

Look at how cheap a new grille is!

And if there’s a trim piece I need, I can go to any junkyard and find five trucks with the same parts. In fact, my local LKQ is stocked:

If you want stress-free motoring, which is the best kind of motoring, buying a rare car isn’t the answer, because there are very few things more miserable in the car world than having to be hyper-careful with your car, and then if something happens, having to spend weeks tracking down parts that you’ll have to pay an arm and a leg for.
I’m keeping my i3, because 250,000 of them were made, so if I do need to replace something like a seat, I can find a replacement, it just will likely be from Europe. The J10 though? It’s a truck; what’s the point of a truck if I can’t use it? If I’m bummed anytime something breaks? If I can’t service it easily and cheaply?
Who am I kidding. That J10 has my heart. Rationality be damned.
In terms of staff cars, I must have the final bosses of rarity: a rotary motorcycle, two JDM imports, a Euro diesel that was never sold in the U.S., an old transit bus, and a Honda Super Cub imitator so rare that not even the manufacturer can tell me how few it built. 🙂 I suppose the Plymouth is also probably rare just due to all of the rest of them rusting away.
Parts? I buy ’em when I find ’em.
Yes. Though smaller, you still have a fleet of eccentric and esoteric vehicles. Best wishes going forward!
Parts scarcity doesn’t only affect particularly rare cars. Sometimes they just age out of the aftermarket and nobody makes parts for them anymore. It’s not a great feeling when an irreplaceable wiper motor fails and your only option is to pull yours off and mail it to the only nerd in the world who is rebuilding them by hand. Hope you don’t need to go anywhere while it’s raining in the next few months!
This!! I was surprised to learn that there was an OEM-specific thermostat for the ZJ that is, of course, no longer available. As long as you’re not depending on it as a daily driver, that’s part of the experience.
Ah, my fun car is a Jeep TJ. There is an entire small industry dedicated to creating and making parts for it. It’s not rare at all, but as unique as you want to make it. With the way they rust though, maybe they’ll be somewhat rare, someday, but they feel like they’ll always be around, like 65 Mustangs.
I go back and forth on this, there’s a part of me that thinks it’s incredible that people can collect vehicles and not put any miles on them, but I feel like that defeats the point.
I want to experience my vehicles, not just look at them. There’s an inherent risk in that, but what good is a car or truck or boat if I never want to drive it out of fear of something happening to it?
David HAS changed: for him, seat damage used to mean a crack developing in a 5-gallon Home Depot bucket.
Why my cousin tells me Dodge/Ford or Chevy when I casually send him a Marketplace Eurovan MV to to look at since he lives in no rust CA.
The Eurovan MV is such a fantastic roadtripping vehicle. It’s so comfortable, drives so well, and looks so damn cool. But ordering parts from Asia and Eastern Europe where the T4 was more popular gets old. The biggest problem is the glass transmission (01P) that was really only sold in NA and while very similar to the 01M in the Jetta the bellhousing is different.
I’m debating on having the trans rebuilt or parting/selling it and getting an American van. They just don’t have je ne sais quoi.
je nais sais quoi, is the perfect sense of the VW’s. The older American road tek things with velour interiors and overwhelming cheap oak are just yuck. But the dang NAPA store probably has a replacement engine for a few hundred bucks. Perhaps sadly, style over substance here at chez moi. Perhaps finding the unicorn 5 speed European MV is the perfect blend?
50% of my fleet falls into this category, and it’s getting annoying. This is not the car ownership experience I wanted. Now, when I see a nice old car drive around in all this salt, I get pissed. I (we) used to promote the policy of drive it till it dies, but that doens’t always work.
Former Mini Paceman owner. Everything in front of the windshield is just a Mini Countryman. Everything behind it? Yeah, good luck finding available and cheap parts.
Oof. I feel this. Our classic is a 78 Impala. You know, all of those first gen B-bodies that were blown up in Lethal Weapon movies. Even worse, the 77-79 ALL had different bits. Grille? Different between years. Taillights? Different between years. Interior pieces? You guessed it. Even some of the trim pieces are different.
It adds a whole other layer when the interior is Green. Yes. Its Green on Green. If you lose the shift knob? You’re screwed. Some of the brittle interior pieces have broken during restoration. We had to get them 3d printed and repainted to match. Also, a lot of the material, like headliners, carpet, etc. aren’t made anymore.
All in all, it took 15-ish years to get all of the parts for the resto. This included a parts car (79, but thank God the sheet metal was the same), which still has a vast majority of parts stored in a storage shed.
At the end of the day, I freaking love that car. I get nervous when I drive it from time to time, but I smile non-stop driving it. I’ve hoarded enough parts to pretty much rebuild it, and it looks like it just rolled off the factory floor.
I don’t know where I am. The man who ate shower spaghetti and got trench foot trying to restore an old jeep, is now worried about an abrasion on a seat of his BMW??? Can someone make sure this is the real DT? I am concerned he may have been swapped out by aliens or something.
I told you not to sell the old one. This one was just for showing off on special occasions.
“Yesterday, I discovered damage on the seat of my BMW i3S and was quite upset — so much so that my wife noticed I was bothered and told me she was sorry that I was so annoyed.”
Save your “quite upset” for when a moth eats it.
I’ve experienced this, albeit tangentially, with my Miata. High-spec NAs like my ’95M have a few bits that aren’t easy to get these days, such as NOS power antenna masts. Passenger airbag sensors are unobtanuim as well, which is usually a great excuse to swap in that Nardi steering wheel you’ve been eyeing, and there’s only one company that produces reproduction leather seat covers for the M-specific low-back seats. Like the Jeep and i3 it’s nothing that will stop the car from doing car things, but it’s a minor headache if you want to keep things as close to original as possible.
Wait until you own the oldest existing Stephens Six touring car (1917), and the only one with a Continental 7W engine. You don’t buy parts, you make them.
I’ve found good success in owning rare cars that are full of parts bin stuff from other car manufacturers. Already I’ve found how much cheap stuff there is I my XKR that is some Volvo part or whatever. Lotus is loaded with old Opel parts, 911 was full of VW parts, etc.
So long as you don’t need bodywork…
Or, you could do as I do and simply use the vehicle until it’s too worn out to drive, then toss it and get another. You cannot keep anything in new condition if you use it,so why waste the time and stomach acid on trying to do so? Use it, abuse it if necessary, junk it, and move on.
I will admit, I don’t see whatever damage you are seeing on your seat. You might wish to talk to a psychiatrist, given your history.
Anything is always available, if you are willing to pay a steep price.
These seats look like new, nothing to be seen on the pictures, yet David is bothered and annoyed? Is this the same David that can look at a pile of rust and declare it the perfect holy grail?
BMW sells only the lower seat cover. In realoem, it seems to be 52107365695. Maybe you are luck to find one cheaper then a second hand seat.