Oh Dear Mot Failure 8-( Mazda 323f

mr_harris

Hi All

Got back from the ye old Mot place my R reg 1.5 BA Failed , have listed the reasons below if anyone could help me with what price it should cost to fix the faults would be a g8 help to keep my Car on the Road!.

001 Nearside Rear (outer sill) Suspension component Mounting prescribed area is excessively corrodded [2.4.A.3]

002 Offside Rear (outer sill) Suspension component Mounting prescribed area is excessively corrodded [2.4.A.3]

003 Nearside front (floor to sill) seat belt anchorage prescribed area is excessively corroded [5.2.6]

004 Nearside front (floor/chassis leg) seat belt anchorage exessivelyy corroded [5.2.6]

005 Nearside rear brake pipe exess corroded

006 Offside rear shock absorber leak

oh LoL to top it Off

007 Front reg plate deteriorated

Asked the MOT tester bloke (Mot only place) stated around £150 he thought it would cost but to me sounds too cheap.

Cheers All

spacey2012

There is a point that you have to throw the towel in.

motorguy

spacey2012 wrote: »

There is a point that you have to throw the towel in.

+1 sounds like the floorpan is mostly shot.

More hassle than its worth i think.

forgotmyname

£150 to slap on a few small patches. The issues start when the patches need patches.

Ive seen a guy advertise who used to work at Rover. Started up a welding business. Does nothing else but welding.
His prices seemed very reasonable.

So worth asking around.

mr_harris

forgotmyname wrote: »

£150 to slap on a few small patches. The issues start when the patches need patches.

Ive seen a guy advertise who used to work at Rover. Started up a welding business. Does nothing else but welding.
His prices seemed very reasonable.

So worth asking around.

Yes there is a guy that advertises small welding jobs not too far away , will ask.

CrazyRed

From what you have said, I would suggest that you review, with a trusted mechanic/welder, exactly how much work this car truly needs.

From what you have said, and written, it looks to me as though this car is approaching the end of it's days - you've got rust coming through on suspension mountings and seatbelt mountings (that's just what the MOT inspector has picked up, because he has to test them - how much more rust is there underneath?).

Yes, you could patch it up this year to get you through the MOT, but what will next year bring? Yet more welding, and patches required?

Get it up onto a ramp, or over a pit, and get someone experienced and trusted to look over the underside with you present and SHOW you how bad the tinworm is - it sounds pretty bad (if you're looking at, essentially, a pair of sills to make the car structurally strong again - that's normally a bunch of work and anything that involves professional labour is going to cost). Unless you know what you're doing and are confident in your welding skills to MOT standard, then normally this sort of job is professional-only.

I agree with the others - £150 sounds too cheap. Maybe for the brake pipe and shock absorber, yes, with fitting and bleeding the brakes but not the welding as well. If it were me, I'd be allowing at least double that figure to account for the welding as well, and then mentally allocating another hundred or so to account for other welding that may well be found to be necessary once the work starts. At that point, you have to seriously ask yourself what you could replace the car for, and a 1997 Mazda 323 with MOT is likely to be very little more than the total cost of repairs to this one, and it's floorpan is probably going to be in better condition than your current one!

I'm a great believer in keeping older cars on the road (my own is a 1998 car) but there does come a point with an older vehicle where you have to put on your 'business head' and cut your losses and change, rather than repair ad nauseum.

forgotmyname

Another year for £150. I would do it. But be prepared for more failure points next year.
You maybe lucky and the points found are localised and may last a bit longer but. Get ready to buy something else.

atrixblue.-MFR-.

323 don't hold well when the start to rust, like the ford ka they just rot and rot no matter how much you chase it out with patch the holes one will pop up on the next MOT.

Slowly_does_it..

Sorry, I agree with others, give the car one final drive to the scrappers.

My old car had replacement sills welded on, then the tinworm got going inbetween the replacement sills and the original metal work. Avoidable if you really cut out everything and really do a major job replacing every last bit of rust, but not worth it on a 323. If there is this much rust and you are involved in an accident, will the car keep its shape around you, or will you become the crumple zone?

BeenThroughItAll

Unless the car has some kind of sentimental value that means you absolutely cannot part with it, I'd go with the majority. Time to say goodbye.

If you did decide to have it done, doing it properly isn't a matter of a couple of hours, so you'll need to make arrangements in the meantime - so factor in any additional costs such as hire car if you don't have an alternative means of transport.

EdGasket

If you are not squeamish, some filler, hammerite paint or underseal as appropriate can get it through the MoT. I've got rusted sills through like that. The politically correct on here will bleat about structure and impact strength and risking your life etc. so its up to you. If the MoT man can't see it, he can't fail it and he is not allowed to remove paint or underseal. I once had a car fail on every brake pipe on the car corroded to excess; took it somewhere else and it passed so rust is a somewhat subjective issue.