Oh NO! dented the caravan!

[LADA]

Brought the 'van out of storage and was reversing up the monoblocking at the front of the house when I thought "Wonder why SWMBO hasn't come out to direct the operation as she always does".
Of course being a man I didn't go in to see her chatting away on the phone for one of her hour long specials, I just continued reversing until THUMP, the top of the back curved roof section was pushed in as I reversed into the overhanging porch above the front door.
Luckily no damage inside the 'van but my pride and joy now sports a huge dent which I'm hoping will pull out with one of those suction dent pullers - I'll give it a go tomorrow.

Lesson learned the hard way - men NEVER ask for help or directions - but who am I to argue.
I'm only a man.......

 

[Jaydug]

I think you'll find that a dent puller won't be of use. Aluminium skin when it gets damaged stretches into the dent. If it stretches enough, it will then split. Once stretched, it won't regain it's shape. The only option will be to fill the area and repaint.

 

[Lutz]

John's right. Aluminium hardens when deformed and needs different techniques to repair damage compared with steel panels. Unless you have access to the panel from the rear to allow the dent to be 'ironed out', John's recommendation is your only option.

 

[Dustydog]

Hi Lada
What a bummer .
Are you Insured?
I'd get a professional quote. Then run it past your Insurers and ask what the implications may be for next years premium. Not all Insurers will penalise you next year if your claim this year.
Conversely if you intend keeping the caravan a long time, have no insurance , and providing it hasn't compromised the water ingress integrity you may choose to leave it as it is.
How big is the dent?

 

[ij.brooks]

Hi, I thought I would mention it may be a claim off your car insurance if the van was attached to the car, a few years ago I caught another van with the rear of my van when pulling out of my storage space, I contacted my caravan insure to be informed that if the caravan was attached to the car then I must claim off my car insurance. So if you go down the insurance route you may need to look at your car insurance excess to see if its worth going throught the insurance. Of cause your caravan insurance may be different from my experience.

 

[ij.brooks]

Duplicate Post

 

[Dustydog]

Hi, I thought I would mention it may be a claim off your car insurance if the van was attached to the car, a few years ago I caught another van with the rear of my van when pulling out of my storage space, I contacted my caravan insure to be informed that if the caravan was attached to the car then I must claim off my car insurance. So if you go down the insurance route you may need to look at your car insurance excess to see if its worth going throught the insurance. Of cause your caravan insurance may be different from my experience.

That's because you damaged a third party caravan , not your own.
In Lada's case this has nothing to do with his motor insurers only his caravan insurers, if any, who insure damage to his caravan.

 

[otherclive]

Aneihbour had a dent+scrape in the alloy side of his van and a franchise named Caravan Medic quoted about £350 to fill, profile and spray the damaged area. All he had to then do was to source the stick on pin stripe from Bailey.

 

[otherclive]

Have a loo at the Caravan Medic Durham webite the gallery gives quite a number of repair examples. Then some other caravan forums have members who have used the Caravan Medic and will give you a customers view. Might be better than a full insurance claim with excess etc. But some insurers are stated to use such franchises.

 

[emmitdb]

Greetings,
On a similar theme, can anyone tell me how to remove one of my reflective blocks on the side of my Lunar.

I need to remove it in order to move it about 9" away to cover a 'ding' Doh!!!

 

[forestgump]

if its not a screw type its sticky use a hair driey and heat it up use wd40 to remove glue and then wash and re wax