YouTuber Mat Armstrong has been on a mission to rebuild a crashed F90 M5 for several months. At first the project seemed almost impossible, as it required an engine rebuild, new body panels, and the entire crash structure to be rebuilt. However, after a bit of homework and some can-do attitude, Armstrong was on a roll and able to fix many of its issues on its own and for surprisingly cheap. Everything was looking up. However, after many, many unexpected expenses later, it’s turned out that rebuilding the M5 costs far more than initially expected.

The idea is simple: buy a crashed super sedan that’s normally extremely expensive, fix it up, and have the same car but for much less money.  However, there’s a reason why cars get totaled in crashes and it’s because repairing them is just too expensive. It wasn’t just some body panels and engine parts that needed replacing. Every single airbag deployed in the crash, which meant all new ones were needed. New airbags means a new dashboard, which isn’t cheap for an M5.

If only new airbags were the only thing needed, though. In addition, new hood hinge mounts were needed, as they feature deployable safety mechanisms that lift the hood up in the event of a pedestrian crash, to add cushion for said pedestrian. Those aren’t cheap. However, they don’t work without a special sensor, that has a long vacuum tube attached to it, and that isn’t cheap either.

New headlights were needed, which is obvious if you’ve seen the original crashed car, and F90 M5 headlights are £800 ($1,000) each. One didn’t work when they were installed so Armstrong had to get a software coding company to remotely fix it, which may have cost additional money.

Overall, the F90 BMW M5 rebuild is costing far more than initially expected and that’s before painting the new body panels. So much so that it might have just been cheaper to buy a used one with similar miles. However, Armstrong is doing a good thing by bringing a car back to life. That’s one less great car getting crushed, which is not only less wasteful but it makes car enthusiasts happy to see such a special car getting saved. Plus, it’s a helluva lot of YouTube content for him. So as much of a headache as this F90 M5 seems to have been, it’s great that he’s putting in the work to fix it.