MOT fail - Anyone any idea of an estimate cost for this?

bris

I just got similar welding done on a 2006 Auris for £100, a few other bits and pieces was £200 total to get it through it's MOT. It's all about finding the right garage.


If you go to the industrial estates and find generally a one man band they are always cheaper, often EU citizens who are just as good as our guys.


If you just get the yellow pages out and find a workshop be prepared to pay 2-3 times as much.

Joe_Horner

You really need to get a quote for the welding before making a decision. Like a few others have said above, structural rust doesn't necessarily mean end of the line - it all depends on how localised the rust is and how well the repair's done. Our old Pug 405 had a repair to the rear of the sill done just before we got it and, 6 years later, it's still rock solid.

Even if it got a couple of extra years out of it, many buy sub-£1k cars on the basis that if they last a year you're on bonus time. On that basis, if it costs less than £500 or so total and the rest of the car's good it's worth persevering with.

But no-one can give definitive advice without seeing it and having a good prod round the rest of the car for other developing areas.

TheMoonandBack

As above, you need to know the cost of the welding. And we can’t judge the overall condition of the car on here.
Most people will say scrap it on principle if it needs welding, but what will it cost to buy a decent replacement ?
One of our cars is a 2001 Astra 1.6 with 130 odd thousand miles on its clock. It’s been in the family since 2009, has a full service history, had a new cam belt and clutch 2 years ago, so when it needed £300 worth of welding for its last MOT, I had it done as it meant another year out of it for 300 quid. Let’s face it, lots of people pay that a month in finance payments.

Shaka_Zulu

If I was in OPs shoes I would price up the welding then decide but would be planning on it's replacement within the next 12 months.

System

TheMoonandBack wrote: »

As above, you need to know the cost of the welding. And we can’t judge the overall condition of the car on here.
Most people will say scrap it on principle if it needs welding, but what will it cost to buy a decent replacement ?

A lot less than the money you could lose if there is also rot in another structural part of the vehicle and/or the welding isn't a good job, which its not likely to be as welding properly onto old rusty metal is very hard, meaning in an accident the structural safety systems don't work and you end up seriously injured as a result.

As some on here may know I have a MX5. On the MK1 and MK2 there is a serious issue with chassis rail corrosion on the front. Most garages just patch the hole but by the time its got to a hole the whole rail is as thin as paper and the only way to properly fix it is take the front subframe off, cut away almost the whole length of the leg and weld in a repair section, not just put a small patch over. What that means by only doing the small patch is in a front impact the chassis rails just fall to bits and the engine is punted into the passenger compartment because the parts that should be metal and prevent that are just rusty coloured brittle rubbish.

Onto the seatbelt mounting point. Unless they put a serious bit of metal in to replace the corroded section the chances are if they're only putting a smallish patch on they'll be welding onto rusty metal that is quite thin (remember the panel will have rotted from the back side, not the bit you see). It'll look the part for the MOT but in an accident it could quite easily fail leaving you with a seatbelt that does nothing and leaves your head pinging the windscreen or your chest whacking the steering wheel.

Whilst it is possible to repair corrosion to be safe it involves more than the small square bit of metal with welds that look like bird poo like most garages do. And even then as I said, other parts of the car aren't far behind.

Garages think this is acceptable.


There's next to no penetration with that weld and the've just done it as a series of little blobs so whilst it might look OK because there are no gaps, very little of the new metal is actually stuck to the old metal and its just a load of blobs just sat on the metal. A weld with proper penetration round would be in "runs" and have blueing of the metal you're welding onto. If you look at the picture above, only the metal patch has blueing on and not the sill which illustrates the sill it was being welded to wasn't getting hot enough for good penetration.



As I said earlier, very few mechanics in a garage can actually weld. Its something to consider when you're having something welded that the seatbelt, the one thing preventing you going through the windscreen, mounts to.

AdrianC

Tarambor wrote: »

...and/or the welding isn't a good job, which its not likely to be as welding properly onto old rusty metal is very hard

If they're welding to rusty metal, then it's a terrible job to start with. Any kind of proper repair will involve cutting back to good, solid, clean, bright, unrusted metal.

System

AdrianC wrote: »

If they're welding to rusty metal, then it's a terrible job to start with. Any kind of proper repair will involve cutting back to good, solid, clean, bright, unrusted metal.

Sadly just grinding back the surface and patching over seems to be the order of the day in most garages. Dowside is it usually results in welding to thin metal with a nice crusty underside and because they blobby weld it doesn't always blow through because they don't actually have the welder turned up sufficiently enough to what it should be for the thickness of metal that is supposed to be there. They tap it with a toffee hammer, it doesn't move, job done, customer billed and another half-!!! repair out the door.

If all or even most garages did structural rust repairs properly I'd be happier recommending that people get it done but they don't.

Muscle750

Worst case of rust ive seen was a Merc E class where the engine crossmember is actually welded to the chassis legs not bolted like every other rear wheel drive car , The car had gone over a speed hump and the whole engine sat on the crossmember had crashed to the floor. All because those Mercs in that era where made from re cycled metal

AdrianC

Muscle750 wrote: »

All because those Mercs in that era where made from re cycled metal

There's a very big difference between recycled metal - which most metal is - and poorly recycled metal.

TheMoonandBack

I’m guessing the OP scrapped it