Dodgy undersealing job? Advice needed!

Technical Area Body, Interior & Styling
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  1. My model of MX-5 is: NC Launch Edition
  2. I’m based near: Rather not say…
  3. I’m looking for technical help or recommendations on: Botched Undersealing

I’m posting this to get some advice and a sanity check before I reach out to the company involved.

I obviously won’t be naming them at this stage as they’ve not even had an opportunity to fix the issue and I don’t want to sully their reputation without a very good reason.

TLDR; Had my NC undersealed in July last year by a well respected company for top dollar. Car has been garaged since, bar 200 miles. Yesterday discovered a large rotten area at the rear offside sill jack point, which has been undersealed over and is crumbling underneath. I want to poll opinion on whether my expectations are reasonable before I engage with the company.

Detail:

So my NC was in a well respected company for a full undersealing, including weld sealing, in July last year. Cost was just over £1000. Since then the car has been garaged over winter, from September to April, save a couple of hundred miles after the undersealing treatment had been completed.

Yesterday, whilst doing some maintenance, I discovered a serious area of corrosion at the rear lower sill, offside. Right at the rear jacking point. See attached pictures.

The area in question is clearly undersealed, but is starting to crumble away revealing what appears to be completely untreated and longstanding corrosion underneath.

Surely this can’t be correct?

The company has a lot of good reviews and a good reputation online, being recommended by lots of people. On their website they detail a multi-step process including fully removing all corrosion both mechanically and with chemical conversion. They say if there is anything more serious they would speak with the owner as there can be no rust under the treatment. All makes sense and sounds great.

They advertise you’ll be supplied with about 60 pictures of the full process as a document of the thorough nature of the work. I received 30 pictures, with 12 of these being of the car before any treatment had taken place.

Looking back at the pictures I received at the time of treatment, it’s now apparent to me that I was not provided much detail of the cleaning and rust treatment stage of the process. There are 6 pictures of this stage, but 1 is of the licence plate and 4 are of the wheel arch recesses, leaving one remaining to show the underside. The area in question is not shown in this image.

There are also 4 pictures of the weld sealing process, however again this area is not shown.

At the time, I let the lower than advertised number of pictures pass as they have an excellent reputation for quality work.

It seems to me there no way the rust could have appeared since the treatment as the car has been in the garage for 6 months, and also no way the rot woudln’t have been present and visible at the time of treatment either, leaving only one possiblitliy in my mind. That the rusted area was undersealed over, as it appears.

Obviously with the reputation and process described on the site I expected the underside of my car to be rust free and protected after spending £1000 just a few months ago.

So what do you think, are my expectations reasonable? That’s essentially what I’m asking before I reach out to them. What would you do?

Thanks everyone!

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It sounds like they have failed to carry this out, the corrosion breakdown as you have shared above has not suddenly appeared in the last 12 months, specifically if the underseal treatment was supposed to mitigate against this.

As to recourse then trader direct and if no satisfaction then trading standards and ultimately small claims court I would suspect.

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Sorry to hear this has happened.

This does not look like rust that has appeared after the treatment. I would get in touch with them to see what they would suggest.

On first look it appears they may not have cleaned the rust before applying the coating and the car imply rusted away just invisible to you. Alternative could be that the coating was not well applied and water got in between the coating and the car and with no way to dry easily (being covered) the rusting process has sped up.

Are there any other areas that appear to have rust on them? You can check suspected areas by pushing with your finger, if it gives there may be rust behind.

Wish you luck in resolving the matter!

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That is naughty! That is a lot more than six months rust, and they should have at least advised you that welding needs to be done before undersealing. A reputable company should be apologising profusely and falling over themselves to sort it out.

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The jacking point is also a drain. Was this blocked with underseal leaving water to collect in this area?

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As with all the comments really, it would be pretty obvious to them that area was rotten, wouldn’t happen in the 6 months after the treatment, it’s been happening years.
Sorry to be blunt, you didn’t notice it either, it’s within easy reach of casting and eye over it before the treatment.
Nevertheless they failed to inform you before proceeding to cover it up :-1:

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Thanks everyone for the replies thus far! Looks like everyone is in agreement with my assessment, so I’ll be reaching out to them today with an email and pictures which formed the bones of this post.

I’ll keep everyone updated when I have a response and/or solution.

It’s a real pity as after getting the car welded on the other side last year then traveling an hour and a half to spend a grand at a well respected undersealer I thought I’d put serious rot issues behind me.

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Folks, an update:

They are taking the car in on Monday “as a priority” to look at and (I hope) fix. Their lead times are usually around 2 months so this is very quick.

To be honest they’ve responded well so far, so that’s encouraging. Lets see what they say on Monday morning when I speak to them face to face.

I think it’s likely the car needs some welding, and if it were one of my businesses I’d be doing this gratis with a serious apology for dropping the ball.

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Well done for updating. Often on many a forum folk post an issue, never to update again.

Hope it all works out fine :+1:

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Fingers crossed for you. Good luck🤞

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Was it MX5 Works by any chance?

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Folks, I’m following up again to close this one off.

So I took the car in on Monday morning, and after a pretty spectacularly bad start with the guy, we eventually left it with him apologising and taking the car to investigate and put right.

I don’t know if I could have communicated better with him, or if it was just the fact that he’d had a few people trying to take advantage of him recently (he admitted this while later apologising) but he was really on the defensive from moment one when I arrived at first.

It wasn’t enjoyable as I had to take him to task on this and really press my point. Anyway at some point I must have managed to convince him I wasn’t on the take and just wanted my car sorted and he calmed right down.

I got the car back yesterday and they have stripped back the area and welded it with no charge. This is a good remedy in my eyes as clearly the welding would have needed done anyway at the point of undersealing (but is usually not included un the cost), and as they messed it up, this is a good compensation. They also tidies up a couple of other bits and gave it a once over and clean bill of health. I’m to return in a few months for a follwo up inspection.

All’s well that ends well, but I’m left a bit annoyed at the way it was handled if I’m honest.

I’m still not going to name the company, but I’m not certain I’ll be recommending them in the future either.

Cheers.

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Which is a pity, as I certainly wouldn’t use them, but as not knowing who they are, could wind up on their door step clueless.
The not naming places causing some sort of grievance is often a forum thing in fairness.

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Good to hear that you got the issue resolved, and that it was (in the end) a good outcome for you.

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Glad to hear they sorted it for you, even if it cost you a bit of grievance.

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Great to hear. Truthfully, it was alarming reading and seeing your initial posts.

I know the place you used as I had mine in there last year for the same treatment. Happy to say that I did get a whole load of pics (60+) and have had no trouble since.

They advised a replacement brace so supplied and fitted an IL Motorsport one with no upcharge. All in, it was quite a pricey outlay for something we wouldn’t normally see until it’s too late however I was happy with the service I received and have no qualms taking it back for an inspection later this year.