RIP 130 Defender...

[justinC]

A truly horrific occurence happened to a friend on Friday night, After getting home and getting ready to crash(!) he noticed a glow from the driveway, and heard a large popping sound, looked outside to see his 130 ' Fender on fire in the driveway.

Earlier that day, the vehicle displayed some strange electrical faults, an intermittent charge lamp illuminated, and the turbo timer wouldn't shut off, so he had to stall it out to stop the vehicle. 50 minutes later, the vehicle is a total loss, with molten aluminium and tyres running down the drive, along with exploding batteries and bilstein shocks etc.

There is literally nothing left to salvage, as even the rear tub started to melt.

This was a 96 model, a pride and joy. I knew the original owner and actually helped the current owner to buy it 4 years ago.

A sad day definately, as also lost were lots of CD's, some recovery gear and comms gear/ scanners etc, as he is a volunteer firey. The local brigade he belongs to turned up to put it out.

I don't think much could be worse than standing helplessly watching the flames devour your pride and joy in your own driveway.

One less 130 CC in the world.


JC

[stuee]

That blows big time. Did he have insurance?

I've seen a few pictures of burn't out landy's where theres literally pools of aluminium formed around the steel shell. Not pretty to look at and a reason I always keep an extinguisher handy in my disco not that it would help in that situation

[justinC]

Thanks stuee, Yes he has insurance, but the 'book' value has plummeted and is around 12k. You show me a good 130 for 12k!!!
And the fire extinguisher was one of the things that blew up.

JC

[Simo63]

Thanks stuee, Yes he has insurance, but the 'book' value has plummeted and is around 12k. You show me a good 130 for 12k!!!
And the fire extinguisher was one of the things that blew up.

JC

12K Ouch . He needs to argue with his insurer. We had a Rangie catch on fire and burn all under the engine bay out sometime in 1997 and whilst it was covered for $18K at the time, the insurance company only offered $10K initially They love taking the money from you when it comes to renewal time but when you need to make a claim ... it's a different story.

Anyway, I say initially because we negotiated it up from there to somewhere midway between the 2 values PLUS I got to keep the wreck so I could recover some more of the funds the dirty dogs wouldn't pay us for. It wasn't easy but it wasn't that hard either as we could show a good service and maintenance history.

Tell him to have a red hot go at the buggers.

[justinC]

Good news,

The insurance company, after We had a long 'discussion' with them about the market value, have coughed up $17,500. This will be enough to pay out the rest of the finance owing, and we've come across a cheap replacement 110 to buy, a 1993 model with high k's but has been well treated.
All has turned out reasonably well, all things considered.

It pays to 'talk' to them about this, as if we hadn't said anything, we would be only getting $12,500.
At least he didn't have to replace it with a stinking commodore or fowlcan.

JC

[artm]

Don't you guys down there have "agreed value" insurance coverage? We have it here: you have the vehicle appraised every couple of years and insure it for that value. You also add any other custom work done to it, as long as this adds to the value.

The policy is written with this value so there are no surprises when it comes time to file a claim.

[mickrangie]

sorry to hear about it but can we see some pics?

[460cixy]

Don't you guys down there have "agreed value" insurance coverage? We have it here: you have the vehicle appraised every couple of years and insure it for that value. You also add any other custom work done to it, as long as this adds to the value.

The policy is written with this value so there are no surprises when it comes time to file a claim.

hahahaha welcome to australia mate the home of milk and honey NOT

[mickrangie]

Don't you guys down there have "agreed value" insurance coverage? We have it here: you have the vehicle appraised every couple of years and insure it for that value. You also add any other custom work done to it, as long as this adds to the value.

The policy is written with this value so there are no surprises when it comes time to file a claim.

hahahaha welcome to australia mate the home of milk and honey NOT

i just 1/2 ed my insurance on he rangie to save some $$ seeing i drive it on avarage once a month.... insurance companies suk!!!

[cloughy]

Lucky you have a choice to have insurance, some of us have one off those things called "interesting history" for want of a better term Damned fast cars being fun

[mickrangie]

Lucky you have a choice to have insurance, some of us have one off those things called "interesting history" for want of a better term Damned fast cars being fun

yes had one of those but the 5 years is up.... no more insuring under my daddy.....

[justinC]

He has some digitals, I'll try to get them posted up, not pretty though.

JC

Picks up the new 'Fender next week.

[1103.9TD]

It was really stressed to me by my local auto electrician, last fortnite, that I put fuses on everything 'live' coming off any of my three batteries!!. He did it straight away, without charging extra labour...I reckon thats pretty good insurance......

[justinC]

That car was fuse city. I think at last count, every radio and accesory was fused inline.
The person fitting the radios etc was an electrical tech, and made certain all was sound.
During all my services, ( every 6 months, 10,000km) the electrical system seemed serviceable and was working well. As I pointed out, the vehicle had some electrical anomalies the day before, like a flickering battery lamp and a turbo timer failure, which we suggested looking at soon, and as it was booked for a service and alternator replacement on tuesday, I was horrified to learn about the friday night disaster. We really don't know what caused it, I would like to think that maybe it was an overcharged exploding battery or something we can pin point, but it's pretty hard to tell.
JC

[Maggot4x4]

1985 County Trayback, 4bd1 3.9L Diesel, Canvas Canopy, Tread Plate Floor, Bull Bar, Hand Winch, Rego, 204000km, No Beach Work, Reg Serviced.

Call Frank or Dell
07 4122 4753 A.H.

[justinC]

Sorry Ash, just bought a 110 '93 200 Tdi 'fender for him, I might be interested in the trayback though....

JC