Car accident this morning

[Knoxville]

My mom went into one of her house calls (she's a social worker) this morning only to be fetched out by a builder who'd driven his van into the front of the land rover. To explain the scene a bit she'd parked well into the kerb on a road made slightly narrow by the other parked cars, the van driver apparently thought another car had stopped to let him go through the gap but as it turned out he had to slam on the brakes and as it was a slippery road it in his words "slid towards the land rover" he owned up fully gave all the details and called the tow truck for his then written off hire van.

My mom got in and told me about this and I went out to inspect the damage, on first glance it appeared that the bumper (must be 1/8th inch thick square tubular steel mind) was bent in and wrapped around the front passenger side wheel and that the front wing was also pretty stoved in but it didn't seem to horrible considering and it still drove fine apart from the reduced travel on the steering.

5 minutes and an 8 pound sledge later and the bumper was at a far safer angle so we put it back on and drove it down to my dads mates garage to have it up on a ramp and an estimate done for the hire company. 10 minutes of looking underneath and it was apparent that far more damage had been done. The chassis was nicely bent out of shape on the front corner which says to me that the van simply didn't just "slide" into it as these are tough chassis's.

Estimated cost of repair £1200, we phoned the hire company and talked to the guy, apprently there was no way the company was gonna foot the bill so they decided to put it through they're insurance company who then got they're approved garage to give us a quote of £1800, what worries me is that the car is only insured for £2k.

Would this make it a write off in the insurance companies eyes?

[Zak33]

very very possible.....how old is it? What sometimes happens is you can have the money IN LIEU of the repair and get it done ya self...

OR if it is written off you get to buy it cheap and get the normal pay out...

HOWEVER it will THEN show on the Accident Register and be hard to sell....

[Howard]

How old is the Land Rover?

[Jiff Lemon]

Anything repair more than 40% of the vehicles current market value will get classed as a write off.

[Rave]

Someone hit my car (which I'd paid £1500 for about 10 months earlier). Her insurance company supposedly sent out an assesor- I'm not sure he ever turned up. Then they wrote the car off and sent me a cheque for £1300. I never even bothered to get the car fixed, couldn't see the point really. So, if they send you a cheque for £1800, then you can get it fixed for £1200 and be £600 better off.

Rich :¬)

[Knoxville]

Can't remember how old it is off the top of my head its and F reg series 3 though (i.e before the defenders). Not too fussed about it being hard to sell zak as my dad's pretty attatched to it and it does what we need.

[Crazy Cricket]

Shouldn't be on an F plate, early F is late sixties, which is S2A land, and late F is the end of the eighties which is firmly coiler age.

Insurance will most likely write it off, but if you want to keep it isn't this the excuse for a galvanised chassis you wanted? That said you should be able to pull out a main leg, tis only mild steel at the end of the day, is the spring hanger in the right place still?

[Flibb]

Last time I looked front chassis legs were around £30, you can also buy front spring hangers if needed. Wings are a problem as they are virtually impossible to beat out, the ali distorts. But you can get wings on ebay, or try some landrover forums for somebody breaking one. A couple of years ago I replaced the entire rear half of my LR chassis, the part cost around £100, had a friend do the welding. Good place for bits
http://www.bearmach.com/
You havent got a pic of the damage have you??

[Flibb]

Think last factory built S3 was 1985, my 2A is 1971 and is a very late 2A as headlights are in the wings.

[Tumble]

It might have been a military vehicle at some stage in it's life - and re-registered for public use during the F era.... happened to JC's lightweight.. had a bugger of a time persuading the tax peeps it was a '75 so it could get free tax, cos it was only registered on the public road in '83....

[Flibb]

Think this is right, military LR's had a bolt on gearbox cross-member. Look underneath, gearbox sits on it and has bolts holding it to the main chassis. Bit of trivia the last series 3 landrovers were built in 1990 (think date is correct). They were put together in a race live on the ITV telethon, the parts were all new straight from landrovers spares department.

[kushtibari]

For an insurance company to write it off its what they call not econimical to repair. They'll look at cost of replacement minus what they'll get for salvage. If that is less than cost of repair they'll write it off. Thats why a lot of older cars get written off for fairly minor damage. I've got a mate who runs a salvage yard and the deals he can do on the internet without shifting out of his chair are amazing.

[Knoxville]

Just checked some of the stuff out you guys have mentioned.

The reg thing i was wrong about, was thinking of our last land rover which was re-registered, this ones a V reg putting it at 1981 i think. Can't get any pics right now as the insurance company had it towed to aldridge to an approved garage for inspection.

[Crazy Cricket]

Think this is right, military LR's had a bolt on gearbox cross-member...

It's not quite that simple alas. The bolt on gearbox cross member is a sign of a military spec chassis, as is a squared off rear cross member on the 109" wheelbased landrovers IIRC. However there where some civilian spec series land rovers in the military, and in turn some civilian landrovers have been re chassied to military spec, anything that makes getting the gearbox out has to be a good thing

That all said and done, if it's a 101/lightweight, it's a fair bet it began life in the military

It's the same with PTO holes, without them a chassis should belong to a country station wagon or high cap pickup, and thus rear fuel tank equipped, but in real life anything goes.

[Vimeous]

A quick note on percentage value for write-off purposes.
Jiff, a good friend of mine nailed his Dads motor for £9000 worth of repairs. The insurers fixed it saying the damage was less than 75% of the value it was insured for. (Car was valued at £13000 and only 3months old!)

Unfortunately, at 90% of the insured value, I'm afriad the insurer will be having a mad fit to fix the Landie. Sorry Knox