Folks -

Unfortunately this evening I backed my D90 into another family car and am trying to assess the damage. It looks like the taillight cover will need to be replaced which seems like a cheap fix.

My main concern is the rear right panel which is dented at the wheel well. Does anyone know if that portion of the car is easily replaceable? A quick google search makes it seems as if it isn’t, which is concerning. Any thoughts would be much appreciated.

I’ve attached an image for reference.



Thank you in advance.

 

Unfortunately my D110 was dented in the same place. It took 3 weeks and $11K to repair, and it involved structural work and aluminum welding by the body shop.

If you’re in SoCal DM me and I’ll share the excellent body shop. You will need one that is certified to do this work, as it is specialty stuff.

They have to cut that whole panel off and they won’t be able to fix it without doing so because it looks like the aluminum is torn. I would suggest using insurance to repair it because it won’t be a small job. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news! Good luck.

 

I think you could be 'lucky' , first remove the wheel and the inner liner of the wheelwell.
Visit a good reputation Dentless spot repair or simulair and let them inspect first. They need to have experience with aluminium.
Afterwards it will need some paint.
Let us know how this continues.

 

Thank you both! Certainly hoping to be lucky.

@Pangea123 was the aluminum torn on yours? Mine is intact, possibly the salt was making the damage look worse than it is.

More pictures with the salt cleaned off below.





Thanks again for the advice. I’ll keep you guys posted, planning on getting a body shop rec this afternoon. I’m located in the northeast.

 

Here is one more cautionary tale. Sorry it's a bit long, but worth sharing.

Last October, I was rear ended in an apparently minor (to me, anyway) fender bender on a local freeway. The person that hit me was distracted and struck the left lower corner of my rear bumper at an estimated speed of approx. 20-25 mph, as I was stopped yielding to oncoming traffic at a freeway on-ramp. He never even attempted to use his brakes.

From inside the Defender it didn't feel like a major impact, and no airbags deployed on either vehicles, but the front end of his car, an older Prius, was pretty much destroyed. My 110 damage appeared to be superficial and limited to the rear bumper cover. See photos below. The Blind Spot monitoring system of the Defender also stopped working (I was later told the module is tucked back there).





I initially took the car at a body shop recommended by my own insurance for an estimate. That shop did give me an estimate based on the damage they could see (about $4,700 parts and labor, included rear bumper cover and a partially dented rear exhaust), but informed they would be unable to perform the repair as they are not certified to work on these vehicles and I would need to contact the manufacturer to get the name of an "authorized" body shop... First time I had ever been turned down by a body shop in my life, and I have visited quite a few over the years. My antlers went up, as I knew this was probably going to be more trouble than I thought.

After getting info from my local LR dealer about the couple of body shops in my area (I also live in LA county) certified to work on these vehicles - just two of them in all of northern L.A. county, warning - I picked the closest to me and went to visit them.

Super professional people but, long story short, my $5k repair estimate from the original body shop mushroomed up to over $27k, when removal of the bumper uncovered a minor bend in the left rear corner of the frame (it must have been minor, as it was completely invisible to the naked eye and I drove the truck for over a month without any issues whatsoever - other than the malfunctioning BSMS - while waiting for the parts from the original estimate to arrive to the shop.) My insurance opted to declare my vehicle a total loss, it was a fully loaded 2020 HSE with 85K miles on it that I had special ordered in late 2020 and lovingly put together in over 3 years. When they told me the vehicle would be totaled, let's just say it was a very bad day. To their credit, they gave me top dollars for the loss, much more than I expected considering the high mileage - but not for the many aftermarket options I had installed and was unable to remove after they broke the news to me (Voyager rock sliders, 18" TuffAnt rims and tires, rear brake mods, etc.), another nasty surprise. Check your policy to make sure aftermarket parts are covered, mine had a combined coverage limit value of $1000.

So yeah, depending on the severity of the impact you could be in for a nasty surprise - hopefully no structural damage on yours as I assume the impact was nowhere near as violent as mine, but with these new vehicles it's really hard to tell and there are so few "certified" body shop authorized to work on these, it's a near monopoly on repair rates and parts costs, which are out of sight around here. Storage fees alone at this facility are $250/day, imagine their labor estimates, all done according to strict Land Rover mandated repair practices, routines and OEM parts. This body shop works on high end / electric cars. I saw almost exclusively late model Rivians, Teslas, Land Rovers, Porsches (Taycans, mostly) in their yard.

Good luck and keep us posted.

 

i assume your insurance holds the policy for both vehicles? that could be beneficial.

 

They totaled the car because of a $27K cost to fix it? How much did they pay you for it? Ballpark is fine if you don't want to say the actual number. TIA

 

Why were you unable to remove the aftermarket parts?

 

They gave me around 72K. The car is worth more to them as a wreck at an auction, I guess. And the 27K estimate was not set in stone, there was always the possibility of additional supplemental claims by the body shop.

 

I didn't have the original wheels anymore and/or the retrofit parts I had removed when I installed the sliders. Besides, it would have been logistically very difficult to remove some of those major mods at a body shop yard... I brought the car there fully expecting to get it back after a few days, fixed with a new bumper and exhaust, little did I know... Had I known there was a chance it might get totaled, I would have figured out a way to remove all that stuff before bringing it in, of course. You live, you learn.