Might sound like a daft question as I'm 99.9% sure the answer no but can you replace the roof on a Freelander 2?

We had a freak hail storm in Bishop Auckland last night and my car along with everyone elses is peppered with dents.

My wife phoned up her insurance company ( 3 month old Hyundi i30 ) and they said said send V5 in as with roof being dented it'll be a write off.

My insurance company said a body repair specialist will pick it up as they can replace thr roof??

To replace the roof will not be viable economically, having seen it fitted at the factory it will be a non starter I would think. Although, the centre section has joins under the plastic covers, not impossible, just expensive.
How bad are the dents, could a dent specialist not remove them?
We had hailstones here too, about 10mm diameter, fortunately nothing damaged.

Not a serious suggestion, but your question brought back memories of bygone times when if we rolled a rally car we would remove the head lining and knock out the depressions with a 7lb. sledge hammer until they did not show from the inside.
Then fill the remaining dents with body filler and fit a vinyl roof.
Then the best bit.
SELL IT.

Bill

PS In the 60's we used to rally without roll cages or any of the modern wimp H and S crap. Life Honorary Member of Wallasey Motor Club.
Licenced MSA Radio Operator for 35+ years.
Rallying is the only sport.

Dents are about the size of a 5p coin in diameter but maybe only say 1mm deep if that.

From experience working in industrial cladding industry if we have dents like that in a cladding panel we would strip and re-sheet as dents are too small to fill and too shallow to pull out.

My thoughts would be a roof would not be economical viable to replace but insurance company seemed to think differant. Hope it can be fixed as the car is in a sound condition. Already replaced the diff so dont want to buy another of same year that may have problems and dont want to shell out £25k for one thats a year or so old.

I found this interesting, so had a quick look to see what the manuals have to say.

The roof panel on the FL2 is independent of the roof structure, and can be replaced separately - the procedure being given in the manual. Basically it's 'simply' a case of removing 10 bolts, milling out some spot welds and cutting through some adhesive. Then glue, bolt and spot-weld the replacement panel in place. No need to touch the pillars or other structural parts of the roof, as would be the case on some cars.

The manual estimates 20.3 hours for a solid roof vehicle (for a sunroof the times are 16.4 hours for the rear panel and 14.4 for the front panel). Times include painting, removing and re-fitting trim, etc.

Cheers Pab,
Hopefully that is what they will do rather than write the car off.

If the insurance company do declare it as a total loss, knowing what you have said it may be worth buying the car back off them and getting the work done myself.

Alternatively a skilled metalworker or panel beater working from below would probably be able to do a reasonable job of removing the dents. Most people can't see the roof anyway, so it might not matter if it's not quite perfect afterwards!

In the late 1980s a small area of Sydney was torn to shreds. I just happened to drive through the following day. You could see the direction it came. The roof of cars were stuffed and the side facing the storm. Same with houses and everything else.

Another year with some impressive hail stones:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_Sydney_hailstorm Procrastination, mankind's greatest labour saving device!

Acoustic insulation ARB TPMS 3xARB air compressors After cooler Air tank On-board OCD pressure air/water cleaning Additional 50L fuel Carpet in doors ABE 2x1kg Waeco 28L modified fridge Battery 4x26ah Solar 120w Victron MPPT 100/20 DC-DC 18amps 175amp jumper plug Awning 6x255/60R18

My colleague had this happen last year - Brand new BMW 4 series roof and boot as well as mazda MX5 roof. Dents were just obvious to the eye so not that deep. Body shop fixed the lot by accessing from below / removing headlining, scraping off the BMW glued on sound insulation, etc. Total cost for both was £750 so didn't even bother claiming on the 2 insurances. FL2 HSE Auto Galway Green
Evoque SD4 Auto Blue.
FL1 HSE TD4 Manual Black - Gone.
RR Classic V8 EFI - Gone