What to do with a drowned Range Rover?

[10JH]

I need some PH advice. Our Range Rover has been written off, it drowned.

My brother took it on the beach at night and got it stuck in sand and then the tide quickly started coming in. To cut a long story short, it spent the night underwater!

The Land Rover garage has told us it is a write off, it won't ever work again. We aren't claiming through insurance (for various reasons). What should we do with the car? At the moment it is stuck at the dealers (after the recovery truck dropped it off there).

What are the options now? Crush it, sell it for scrap/parts? Any advice appreciated.

Here are some photos of it getting pulled out, the morning after..

[10JH]

Gun said:

Your best bet would be to strip it for parts, there are bound to be some bits that are still usable. What engine has it got?

3.0 TD6. We don't want the effort of selling each part individually. Reckon there will be anyone who will take it as a whole?

Cheers for the support, we're starting to see the funny side now, a lot of piss taking going on!

[10JH]

Insurance is simply because he is only 17, and a named driver on the policy. It would mess up my Dads no claim bonus for the rest of his cars too. Plus make future insurance for my brother very very pricey.

Plus he was on the beach, if that is ever covered!

Plus the excess is £1000 and it's market value is only about £10-12k. An very very expensive mistake.

[10JH]

GSP said:

Holy crap, that's a bit of a fail.

On another note I saw a mini on the M6 with 10JH number plate so so long back, is that yours?

Yeah probably was. Finally got spotted!

[10JH]

john_p said:

10JH said:

it's market value is only about £10-12k.

What the hell!? Did I miss something?

Look at the classifieds, 52, 110,000 miles. The garage told us that would be the market value.

[10JH]

KenBlocksPants said:

jeff666 said:

Go out and buy a rolled/ smashed one and use your parts to repair, then e-bay everything left over.

Thats what I would be doing if I had the spare time.

Nice little project.

Understand the long term reasons for not claiming. I imagine your brother at 17 will not be able to stump up 10k for it.

Not a chance! Viewed in the long run though, we will be saving a fair bit of money. Insuring him on it cost a lot, it cost a lot to run and broke down constantly! My Dad is now just using his other car and my brother his Jazz, so we won't be replacing it soon.

[10JH]

julian64 said:

Did you disconnect the battery before you left if for a night in the sea. If so the electrics have a chance, if not then forget it.

Nope, he left it with the ignition (not the engine) on.

Apparently, for a short time all you could see were the lights on under the sea!

[10JH]

Cheers for the advice guys!

I think we're going to try and sell it to a PHer, a couple have PM'd about it. None of us have the time to strip and sell it ourselves and I'd rather someone on PH get it than mess around with ebay.

Much as I'd love to do something fun (Bowler style), I haven't the skills or time!

[10JH]

Do I have to tell the DVLA it has been in an accident? Is this classed as an accident?

Plus when selling the car, we want to put the plate on retention, can this be done on the day of selling or is it better to do it in advance (doesn't it take a week or so)?

[10JH]

Targarama said:

10JH said:

Do I have to tell the DVLA it has been in an accident? Is this classed as an accident?

Plus when selling the car, we want to put the plate on retention, can this be done on the day of selling or is it better to do it in advance (doesn't it take a week or so)?

Do it in advance and get a normal plate on the car, otherwise you have to trust the buyer to complete the transfer post sale/V5 receipt or make them wait for you to do it anyway.

Cheers. Any idea on the telling them it's an accident part?

[10JH]

DennisTheMenace said:

davepoth said:

Suggesting it's scrap before even attempting to get it to run is madness. The ECUs should be waterproof on a range rover (they are supposedly able to wade above the bonnet with a snorkel fitted after all) so as long as they didn't get fried by the battery it's worth changing all the fluids for £30, drying out the cylinders and see if it'll go.

Very true ,but the water has got into the cabin , and land rover didnt check that part , plus the water thats got into the engine and every other crevice , the things toast simple as.

look at the dash the tide mark is just above the centre console so it wasnt total submerged . perhaps land rover need to look at mounting ECU's Can modules in the roof !

I think it was totally submerged, some people who lived nearby said it was. Plus the interior light fitting had some water in!

[10JH]

It's a me said:

No, you do not have to tell the Dvla about its little fishing trip.

Do you ever have to tell the DVLA then? Is it only if you claim through the insurance company?

[10JH]

ChrisRS said:

Fox- said:

There is something not right here.

How can your Dads no claims bonus be worth £10,000 to you?

I lost all my no claims when I was 22 and still insured a Group 17 car for just over a grand - ie, it went up by 200 quid.

How can it possibly work out cheaper to take a £10,000 hit than simply claim on the insurance?

Agreed!

I've questioned this with my Dad as well. He said that because he insures both my brother (17) and sister (20) on other cars through his name that he reckons the insurance would take a big knock. Plus the excess was £1000.

He also argues that they may not pay out at all, my brother was driving on a beach. He reckons that wouldn't be covered after reading the small print.

We also had a bad experience with my car when I asked the insurance company about my car getting keyed. They said just ringing up and enquiring about making a claim counts as a claim, so my insurance went up £300 the next year. Even though I didn't claim, they said I lost my NCB.

Therefore just asking the insurance company might cause him problems.

[10JH]

AndrewW-G said:

10JH said:

Do I have to tell the DVLA it has been in an accident? Is this classed as an accident?

Plus when selling the car, we want to put the plate on retention, can this be done on the day of selling or is it better to do it in advance (doesn't it take a week or so)?

No you dont have to tell the DVLA, just fill in the relevant bits of the V5c when you sell it / scrap it.

To transfer the plate, fill in the form to transfer / retain the plate (available on DVLA website), take the V5c, tax disc and MOT (if applicable) together with £105 to the DVLA in chester, you'll have a retention cert and new V5c in 2-3 weeks

Cheers Andrew.

Yeah it was the Meols slipway!

[10JH]

Fox- said:

Biker's Nemesis said:

Can't beleive people will dismiss 10k.

Whole thing is ridiculously fishy to me (no pun intended). Especially where the OP claims he lost his NCB despite not making a claim - NCB = NO CLAIM bonus not no blame bonus, you only lose it if your insurer pays out money which it does not subsequently recover from either yourself or a third party.

It's not a case of dismissing £10k, it's that he has decided he thinks its not worth claiming as it will affect the future insurance premiums too much. He has 5 cars insured under his name, I don't know if they are all with one company or under one multi fleet. I'll ask though.

As for my NCB, that was my policy for just me. When I enquired about it they put it down as a claim, despite not claiming any money off them. Something to do with informing them and choosing not to get the scratch repaired.

[10JH]

Stubby Pete said:

Mr Gear said:

Sell the whole thing on ebay as a job lot. Someone will love it back to life.

+1

Reserve it at what you would accept, no starting bid tell the truth and loads of photos. Worst case scenario is that it costs you the listing fee.

Got to be worth a go.

There is enough PHers offering at the moment! I haven't got an ebay account either.

Plus it would be even better if they document it on here, so I can see how they get on!

[10JH]

4sure said:

Tell me something.....did the car remain upright in the sea or did it get tossed about ?

It just stayed as it was, it was pretty well stuck in the mud. The tow truck couldn't even budge it with it's winch. Then they got a tractor and that struggled to shift it, the tyres were spinning and smoking.

[10JH]

Celt said:

How much is it to put a 17 year old on one of these? Doesnt seem right that a 17 year old can drive that and have to spend upwards of 2k on a 1.0 corsa or whatever. Well done to him though! Must be up to his nuts!

Hope you can get it started and make reasonable money from this.

I think that's partly the reason my Dad might not be claiming. It wasn't anything like what you'd imagine to insure both my sister when she was 17 and then my brother when he was 17. It was a great value policy.
They were insured on their own cars though, so this might have helped too.

Cheers for the well wishes, don't think the money will compensate much though!

[10JH]

10JH said:

Fox- said:

10JH said:

It's not a case of dismissing £10k, it's that he has decided he thinks its not worth claiming as it will affect the future insurance premiums too much. He has 5 cars insured under his name, I don't know if they are all with one company or under one multi fleet. I'll ask though.

He'll only lose his NCB on the policy he claims under. Sure he'll have to declare a claim on the others but its not going to put his insurance up by 9 grand is it?

[quote]
As for my NCB, that was my policy for just me. When I enquired about it they put it down as a claim, despite not claiming any money off them. Something to do with informing them and choosing not to get the scratch repaired.

[quote] Then take them to court and reclaim your money, because its a NO CLAIM bonus and you made NO CLAIM.

I only lost a year and made it clear to them I was changing providers because of them. It was a company that I read being moaned about recently on a GG thread. Think large grey animal.

[10JH]

twiglove said:

Out of interest OP, Did your brother call for assistance when he realised he was stuck? Could you not find a tow truck operator or another 4x4 to pull him out before the water came in? You know it was only badly stuck after the water retreated as the wet sand was causing a vacuum around the RR...

...Oh and what was he doing on the beach in the 1st place

He was pissing around with mates.

He called everyone he could think of, he was only stuck for about 45 mins before it was underwater.

He rang the coastguard first but they wouldn't come as it wasn't a life threatening situation (fair enough).

Then he called the police and they turned up. They said they didn't have a 4x4 so couldn't do anything. Apparently they just sat and watched with him and his mates!