Disaster

[HampshireHog]

Now is defiantly the time to buy a lottery ticket , like all have said your ok , hope all turns out ok for you

[Bingy]

Glad your OK pal, and in one peice

As others have said, cars can be fixed

[Anderzander]

Thank you everybody - really encouraging responses from you all, and very much appreciated.

I spoke to the insurer (NFU) yesterday - they are open to the options of me buying salvage and they are going to ring me tomorrow after they've spoken to their engineer.

I suggested they bring it here too so that I could more fully assess the damage, get 'further quotes', and save them storage costs ...... See what they say to that.

It all depends on costs I guess. But there is potential for me to finish it with a cat D to drive and have had some money to rebuild it (and maybe even a bit extra to chuck at my series 1).

I'm not sure at all at what value they will put on my 90 and what cost they would put on the salvage yet.

If it works out cheap enough to take the salvage, then I'd buy a super cheap car to run around in and take the pressure time pressure off fixing this.

So hard to value 90's - mine was 2000 but 80k and very clean and well looked after - I see later ones that are sheds in comparison but almost none of its age that are as tidy. A point I'll probably have to argue with them.

I'll post up the outcome.

Thank you again.

[Anderzander]

p.s. Load of the emergency staff at the scene told me to buy a lottery ticket - so I did. It's drawn on Saturday.

Seems to me that I've already cashed in my luck for a good while yet though...

[cackshifter]

My 110 was written off by NFU a few years ago; I bought it back & got it rebuilt on a new chassis as a Cat C - NFU charged then a standard 26% of the market value for the remains, and gave me 74% as cash. They needed a bit of persuading to give it back so if you are keen don't be afraid to ask them to do that.

[GW8IZR]

I read somewhere this cat of write off system was being changed shortly tied in with VIC being finished.

It looked like it might be a slightly better system but I wasnt paying too much attention.

Even if you buy it and break it you might do ok out of it.

Whichever way you look at it you have had a good result just walking away from it.

[Defender]

OMG!!! Glad your OK as others have said cars can be replaced.

The Defender looks in remarkable shape for having hit the central reservation at 65mph, flipping and landing on it's wheels I doubt very much any hatchback would have survived as well and I dare say you'd be in worse shape too.

Hope you heal soon.

Personally I'm not sure I'd want the truck back,it's one thing bouncing it down a green lane or a few rock steps but dropping it from height at speed there could be lots you can't see or may give problems later if somethings cracked but not immediately obvious.

[Anderzander]

My 110 was written off by NFU a few years ago; I bought it back & got it rebuilt on a new chassis as a Cat C - NFU charged then a standard 26% of the market value for the remains, and gave me 74% as cash. They needed a bit of persuading to give it back so if you are keen don't be afraid to ask them to do that.

That's helpful - thank you. How did you go on with insuring it once rebuilt ?

[Anderzander]

Personally I'm not sure I'd want the truck back,it's one thing bouncing it down a green lane or a few rock steps but dropping it from height at speed there could be lots you can't see or may give problems later if somethings cracked but not immediately obvious.

That was my first response - but having seen it again I felt differently about it. I think the bumper and the wheels have acted almost as a sacrificial link - seemingly having been destroyed by the force rather than passing it into the rest of the truck.

But - I still take your point and would like another, more thorough look at it before I make my decision.

So much to think about ...

[landkeeper]

without sounding like a prophet of doom i bet the chassis won't be straight after that smack all that force on one corner !!! i have seen a few defenders at this point which have been involved in altercations at far slower speeds than your incident they all had twisted chassis at the end of the day.

[Anderzander]

Don't worry about being a prophet of doom - my heads not the clearest and I need people to talk sense to me.

[ian_s]

just by looking at that photo i think the front left corner of the chassis is out of place. the bumper bolts dont seem to line up with the ones on the other side

[CwazyWabbit]

I wonder how the mechanicals (diff,gear and transfer boxes, engine etc) took the landing and possible sudden reversal of direction?

[daveturnbull]

Wow! That's some acrobatics.

I rolled my Defender hybrid about 18 months ago now on a dual carriage way (wiped out by a kamikaze spaniard) and the thing that saved my ar5e was the full MSA cage. Like you, I walked away unscathed but a bit stiff around the shoulders. The land rover didn't fare so well with a twisted chassis (even tho it was reinforced - used to be a comp safari car).

The plod were quite bemused when my mate turned up to help right it, slung a rope round the cage, back on it's wheels, quick check under to bonnet, fired it up and drove it away.

With regards to salvage value, expect to pay 25% of whatever they value it at. And get it back within your grasp asap, or bits will start going missing!

Most importantly tho, you're ok.

[cackshifter]

Anderzander, re your query about insuring it once built, NFU insured it no problem. I think they were reassured by the chassis replacement - it had a new chassis & bulkhead at the rebuild. They obviously didn't want to be accused of allowing bodged wrecks back on the road, but I promised to change the chassis, so the alignment would be perfect, and we offered to let them inspect after the rebuild if they wished. The impact had pushed the front of the chassis about 3" to the left, though the steel certainly wasn't its original thickness. We got FAM to take it across to MAD (Paul Marsden) next door to Richards (about £200 to do that from sunny Salford) Richards sorted me out a chassis & he did the rebuild. The mechanical bits were all basically OK (the sump needed welding up & it needed new front radius arms). About a month later it lived to fight another day. It needed a VIC check - we showed VOSA (Chadderton) the chassis receipt and the bit of the old chassis with the VIN on - that was accepted. Paul MOTd it before it was re-insured so I guess that would have helped too - they never did do the check. It was still taxed all through that period which though expensive saved having to get the VIC check done till it was on the road properly.

There were one or two other re-chassis places that were willing to do the rebuild, I just rang the chassis suppliers and asked who they recommended.

I would second what Dave Turnbull is saying - get it moved ASAP before bits go missing. If you have special bits the market value will probably not reflect that - on the other hand you'd get them back again without having to re-buy, so hopefully they'd be OK. For your interest, damage pics http://s806.photobucket.com/user/furbern/library/Defender110Accident?sort=3&page=1 here (it was much worse than it looked) and rebuild http://s806.photobucket.com/user/furbern/library/Defender110Rebuild?sort=2&page=1 here.

Would I do it again? Yes, I didn't want to lose the effort & care invested in the old girl.I did spend quite a lot on new bushes, brake pipes, clutch, shocks, etc, as well as Paul's efforts so don't expect a profit !!

[Anderzander]

I am mindful of the nice bits on it - though they are a winch set up - the suspension, a diff, and an x-brake.

I mentioned removing the winch to the NFU and they said absolutely.

If I had the truck here I could swap most of the suspension over and the diff to standard parts too.

I'm not sure how to get it here though - I asked them about moving it here so I could get further repair quotes - but that hasn't happened.

I'm not sure how I'd move it myself or how they would receive that. Would my RAC cover collect it for me ?

[tacr2man]

R A C answer NO

[Anderzander]

Yes - I just rang them - they will do it but it's £168 plus £1.68 per mile and that may be plus VAT.

[Anderzander]

Crikey - just eaten a fortune cookie and got a rather apt message :

[qwakers]

Yes - I just rang them - they will do it but it's £168 plus £1.68 per mile and that may be plus VAT.

if i was near you i'd do it for you. maybe someone else on here is closer?

[ejparrott]

I actually think it looks in better shape than my 88 after our shunt courtesy of an illegal immigrant....I put a little thread in a project page somewhere.... She was a Cat C write off, was told she'd need a VIC check but when we phoned VOSA they said that was tosh. simple MoT and away we went,no problems with insurance, premium actually dropped £3 the following year!

[muddychris300tdi]

Blimy, you were lucky, fingers crossed for your lottery ticket.

Regards moving it what about trying one of these websites for truckers trying to get return loads.

Chris.

[mickeyw]

I'm absolutely gutted for you Stephen, but very glad to hear you walked away with so little damage to yourself. Seeing that picture I would never have guessed the sequence of events you went through.

As far as insurance goes, I guess the thing is to not let you push them around. I'll be very interested how you get on - I'm with NFU too

[Shackleton]

Well done mate, it sounds like your quick reaction and instinct made the best of a f*&ked situation. Glad you (and I hope everyone else) is ok. Must be some experience!

Think the engineering aspect is really interesting, that the wheels could have saved the structure of the Defender. Would love to see a photo of it from the side. Can't shake the mental image of those old Golf ads where they dropped one.

Anyway, best of luck with the insurers.

[Anderzander]

Thank you again everyone. The insurer has presented two options:

A settlement now or an Engineer to visit and assess the damage and value it.

Apparently the body shop report has reported chassis damage - which some of you guys picked up... and has lead to me leaning towards a settlement rather than buying it back.

They won't though offer a figure so I can then decide about the engineer - but I guess a plus point would be that I may benefit from it being seen and it's condition recognised.

The flip side is that I've seen a 90 for sale that I really like - but it's right at the top end of what they may offer. On the early settlement I'd perhaps not get enough money - on the engineers visit it could well have been sold.