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friend contacts us about his family car which is suffering from some serious rust around the rear wheel wells and along the rocker panel below the doors. He is trying to evaluate if this work is within his budget or if he can do the work himself.
Many people who live in the northern states where road salt is heavily applied in the winter will have rust problems however it is also important to take good care of your vehicle and remember to wash not just the top side but also the wheel wells and under your car during the winter. If it snows on a weekend I won’t even go out until Monday because so much salt is on the road and its just a bad time to be driving. However you can’t just stay home all the time so its important to take your car to a car wash that also cleans the underside of your vehicle.Eventually though the salt will catch up with you and you will start getting rust around your wheel wells and parts of your underbody.
In the picture you can see bubbling of the rust under the paint. With light force you could probably press a screwdriver through that area and make a hole. To make the repair you need to cut back the rusted part to good metal and weld on new metal.
If you were going to do this work yourself it is important to first make your patch panels before you start removing metal. Patch panels can be made out of 18 to 22 gauge sheet metal depending on the part you are making. However if you are repairing a rocker panel that area is made out of hardened steel so you will want to buy that part and not fabricate it yourself. Any frame pieces need to be replaced at the spot welds and not patched or cut in. Make your quarter panel patch and make sure it matches the contour of your wheel well before you remove the rust because trying to do it after is pretty much impossible. You can also ask your auto body supply center if they offer patch panels but normally you will only see them for classic vehicles like mustangs and camaros.
In the rear corner of the door you can see an area where at least 3 pieces of sheet metal connect. You have the quarter panel, the rocker panel below the door and also the floor inside. This area is a serious headache to repair and can be costly whether you buy parts or fabricate them.
You Never Know How Bad It Is Until You Remove The Rust
In evaluating a vehicle for rust repair many shops will give you a large range of results in price and hours. Like we said there is the cost related to new parts or the many hours required to fabricate parts. However the big problem is you never really know how bad the situation is until you remove all of the moldings, carpet, door panels and then grind down the rust to an area you can see good metal.
It can be very deceptive and often much harder to estimate rust repair vs accident repair. With Accident repair you can see or measure the parts that have been damaged and you know that they all need to be restored by pulling or full replacement. You never fabricate parts or do much bondo work when you are dealing with accident repair. With Rust Repair it can often total out a car if you need to replace all of the panels that are effected by rust. The problem is you won’t even know until you start the work.
Rust Repair is best when no frame or high strength steel parts are involved. Once you start getting into frame and high strength steel parts you are limited on how you can weld them because welding will reduce their strength. Replacement is then required.
Where it might take an hour to drill out all of the spot welds on a damaged piece and weld a new part on it could take hours to get all of the complex shapes, bends and curves in a part you fabricate by hand. It really depends on the vehicle and why you are trying to save it.
Final Note
Deciding to repair a vehicle always has to do with what you expect to get when you are completed. In this case the vehicle is an older family car that has seen a hard life. The vehicle does not have a high market value and is not highly valued like a performance vehicle such as a Mustang or Camaro or other vehicle.
The cost should make the decision. Is the repair easy to perform? In this case it could be complex or expensive to make this repair either in hours needed to fabricate the repair patch panels or expensive if new parts are purchased.
In reality this vehicle should probably be traded for another one in better condition but of similar value. Its a second car and they should find someone that wants to buy their vehicle and find another vehicle in better condition.