MOT fail - Seat Belt Anchorage corroded

Hello,

Car just failed MOT (MK 1)

The following problems are with the Seat Belt Anchorage:

  1. Seat Belt Anchorage prescribed area is excessively corroded nearside outer (sill) (5.2.6)

  2. Seat Belt Anchorage prescribed area is inadequately repaired offside rear (facing panel) (5.2.6)

  3. Seat Belt Anchorage prescribed area is excessively corroded offside rear (closing panel)Ā  (5.2.6)

I have had a similar problem before, Is this a simple (ish) fix?

Any advice appreciated,

Cheers

Hi Chris

If you have had a similar problem before you will know that the fix involves repair to the sills ie. welding.

Its simple enough if like me you have a welder but still a pain.

If you go to a garage expect a bill of around Ā£150.Ā 

Ā 

Seatbelt anchorage is one of those areas I would recommend you get a garage to do the welding - unless you are extremely confident of your welding ability.

Agree if it is the actual anchorage but is it a general description of corrosion within a certain distance(12 inches?) of said anchorage point. This usually ends up being a run of the mill sill repair or three.  

 

 

 

A lady at work recently bought an 03 plate MK2, without actually doing any research on the car.

To me the car doesnā€™t look honest, Itā€™s obvious itā€™s been painted, and not very well at that. It just doesnā€™t smell right.

So I checked itā€™s MOT history.

Itā€™s failed on seat belt ancorage 3 times over the last 4 years, plus a multitude of other things.

If you plan on keeping the car, then get a good job done.

Thanks for the help, itā€™s in a garage now, he is going to call me for a price but Iā€™m hoping not too much over Ā£100 (optimistic I know!)
My MX 5 is at the end of itā€™s life pretty much, this may well be the last MOT it goes through although Iā€™d like it for another couple of years if possible, wonā€™t keep spending money on jobs like this though and there were a few other problems including with a suspension joint.
Cheers.

My '94 Eunos needed this doing to get through its most recent MoT -ā€˜seat belt anchorage prescribed area excessively corrodedā€™ - both sides. Ā In reality there were small rusted through areas (about 3 x 2 cms) around 25 cm from the anchorage points - one on each side.

I had the welding done at my trusted and reputable local garage - it cost Ā£249 including the retest. Ā So thatā€™s a shade under Ā£200 for the welding.Ā 

I have had a quote (which I accepted) of Ā£340 for the welding to be done plus front suspension ball joint replacement too (including parts).

I donā€™t think Iā€™ll beat that and the mechanic is pretty trustable. Getting a welder locally is hard enough today so it is in his hands! Will get it back tomorrow, hereā€™s hoping it ends up fine!

Provided the car serves you well over the next 12 months then Ā£340 equates to Ā£28.33 per month.

Whilst to some it might look like chucking money down the pan, you couldnā€™t buy another for that much.

Iā€™ve had my NC coming up two years and probably lost Ā£1000 (or more) in depreciation.

Hereā€™s a bit of relevant information from the world of business.

At a given point in time you are trying to decide whether or not to spend money on a project. The money you have spent up to that point is called ā€˜sunk costsā€™ and all too often people argue that they have to keep spending because they canā€™t ā€œthrow away all that money we investedā€. Itā€™s a mistake. If you look through the rules on project financing they will all say the same thing: you ignore what has been already spent and you look at what you need to spend now and what return you will get on that investment.

If spending Ā£300 will get you a year of enjoyable driving then that seems like a reasonable return on your investment.

As a current example - I own a 2006 BMW 530d M Sport Touring Auto. Lovely car, but itā€™s getting a bit long in the tooth and at the beginning of the year I decided that it was time to replace it. So I sat down and worked out what I would need to invest to change it to a newer car of comparable specification. The answer, after a bit of careful working out, was Ā£3-4k. I looked at the return on investment I would get on spending that Ā£3-4k and the answer was a car that does the same but might cost me less in repairs and maintenance. But even if the current car were to cost me Ā£1k a year in repairs and maintenance more than the new car I could continue to run it for 3-4 years for the same money I would spend on replacing it.

I decided to keep the car and earlier this week it went in for itā€™s MoT and service. Total cost just over Ā£400, and that included a new battery. So instead of spending Ā£3-4k I have my nice car for the next year for the meagre outlay of Ā£400. The money that was left from the Ā£4k budget was used to buy my new NC1 so serious result from my perspective! I now have two nice cars!

The points above are exactly the ones I made in order to get this work done, Ā£340 is an acceptable amount to get it through an MOT for me, I think when it starts getting into the Ā£500ā€™s and gives me major problems throughout the year it will be time to renew but it still drives really nicely and hasnā€™t given me any problems since the last MOT. I have been looking online but havenā€™t seen anything I like as much as my current one so hopefully it will get me through another year and I can look again next March!

Thanks for the advice!

 

This is what I tell myself every two years when one of our 5ā€™s needs a 2k remetalling & paint!  

 

Donā€™t get me going. Paid slightly over the odds for my NC because (for once) both me and the other half loved the colour. If you include the ~Ā£1k that I am going to pay out next week to have half the car resprayed, plus the >Ā£500 I have already spent on ā€˜bits and piecesā€™ (new subframes, door cards, struts, ARBs - the list goes on) it doesnā€™t make any economic sense. But having bought the car - for better or for worse - Iā€™m not going to spoil my enjoyment of it because it needs a bit more money spending on it.

Having said that, Iā€™m starting to get those looks that tell me I need to stop spending money and consolidate for a while. 

/ /

Ā 

Sorry for thread revival but looking to buy an MX 5 and most in my budget seem to say Seat belt anchorage prescribed area is corroded but not considered excessive on most Past MOT. Glad I found this thread since been keeping clear of them thinking it will cost Ā£Ā£Ā£Ā£Ā£ to repair. So could still buy cheap and repair for next MOT.

Please donā€™t by an MX5 thinking Ā£300 will make the car perfect. That price above including additional work is ridiculously low, prob just plated over to get it through the mot. A decent job with a good restorer will be nearer Ā£400 a side prob more.

Still sounds cheaper than the Ā£750 of welding my old Fourtrak needed.

Ā 

Iā€™ll be brutally honest, but for me, when a car needs welding for the MOT, then its only really headed in one direction and thats the breakers yard.

If not this year or next, itā€™s arrival is imminent.

A few hundred quid to get another years fun isnā€™t too bad, but there will come a point where itā€™s time is up.

Ā 

The only caveat to this, is if a car undergoes a decent restoration and then lives the rest of itā€™s life being molly coddled.

A welded car is not going to survive much longer living outside all year round, being driven on salted roads.

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Apologies if this upsets anyone.

To be fair a ā€œwelded repairā€ on my 96 lasted 6 years before ā€œproper restorationā€ was done, and even then, it was only done because I was feeling picky.

Since the 2017 repairs, its not been mollycuddled, and everything around the repairs looks fine, though elsewhere, I need to attend to the underseal (though more precisely, someone else will be

2009, before any repairs

Repair (whole car was repainted)after 12 months. Oh.

The horror, 18 months after the repair (early 2011). You can see the plate.

So naturally, stormed off the the bodyshop who did this, who came up with excuses, but put ā€œrightā€ the repair.

I didnā€™t photo this repair, but in 2017 it looked like this:

It felt pretty solid to touch. There is an obvious rust bubble developing. But I opted for have the whole lot and the arch to be replaced, as the upper arch lip was looking a bit suss and starting to balloon

When cut away, the sill itself wasnā€™t too bad; the repair you see was done during the arch repair, so despite the grmness of 2011, the sill survived. What was grim was the inner arch lip, which had to be built up (never welded before, 1996 Roadster, imported 2000).

So, cheap and cheerful patch repairs will only last 12-24 months. They are not necessarily the harbingers of doom. But a cheap patch is cheap; Ā£100 or so.

Cheap repairs masquerading as more expensive repairs will only last 12-24 months, and might cost hundreds. These repairs are scams.

A good localised repair to a sill will last at least 6 years. The repair itself might last longer, but its the rest of the car that is starting to crumble. It doesnā€™t make any sense toreplace an arch, but not an older welded outer sill panel, given that the patch panels are sill plus arch. Iā€™m expecting this repair to last at least 6 years, but I know elsewhere on the car will likely need some repair.

Garaging a car can be a killer. If garaged, leave the boot open to allow air to circulate.

Of the cars I have had for significant periods:

1991 S-Spec, imported 1997, never garaged, lived by the sea. Sold in 2005, not a shred of rust. I note though by 2016, someone had to make repairs to it.
1993 S-Limited: Imported 2003, one owner to 2009, who garaged the car, mollycuddled it, dinitrol box sections when imported, hardly used, 2009-2013 used as a daily drive, not garaged, 2013-owned by me, 100% garaged, when acquired, the sills were starting to degrade, as were the front wings. 2018; two sills and one arch were needed, jacking points on one side had collapsed
1996 S-Spec 2: The workshorse. Imported 2000 by Mazda UK, couple of London owners then me from 2005. 2005-2013; never garaged, no additional undersealiong, clocked on 100k+ miles during this period. Repair to sill needed in 2009, redone in 2011, By 2015, other rear sill was starting to show rust. Full repairs in 2017. Remarkably, I have never had a rust advisory, let along fail on this car. Underside is starting to look a bit shabby now, so will be attended to. During the 2017 repairs, I also needed repairs to the passenger door frame; unusual, but I think related to door skin repairs by Mazda back in 2002-2003.

My first Roadster, SAZ9826, was torched in 2000, so doesnā€™t count. My M2-1002; despite being in shabby condition, and used as a farmyard hack, had no issues whatsoever with the sills.

My conclusions? So called best in class rust treatment did nothng to prevent rusting of a well looked after car over a 13 year period. Maybe that is to do with how it was applied, who knows. TGhe critical area is none-draining and difficult to access. Even if it can be accessed, it is essentially impossible to demonstrate effective coverage here. Whether a car is garaged or not, does not affect speed of rusting, per se. How the car is used might do, ie. if you never use the car, its probably not going to have a problem, rustwise. Long term storage outdoors might affect paint apeparance, but that is cosmetic/superficial really. Modern waxes and sealants I think largely mitigate this.

Our view of how to regard rusty examples of Mk1s is largely driven by the fact that there were always plenty of cheap rust free alternatives; if the different between a ā€œrust freeā€ and a ā€œrustyā€ (including obviously cheaply repaired cars) was less than Ā£1000 (the cost of sills and arches, plus paint), then it always made sense to reject the rusty car. But thats no longer the case. Sub-Ā£1000 cars are still available, though they probably have lots of other problems. There are good numbers of cars at Ā£1000-1500, generally well looked after, except for dodgy sills. Byut now, concours quality cars are reliably achieving Ā£8-10,000, and very good cars Ā£5-8000. Tidy presentable cars, with few obvious issues (and probably a history of decent repairs) are Ā£3-5000. So there is a yawing gap between Ā£1500 and Ā£3000, making decent repairs much more economic. The cars in between are questionable, as they will be a mix of some bargains, and some real heartbreakers.

So, set your budget high enough to exclude these questionable cars (and this budget I suggest will be fluid), or, set it low, and look for those well looked after, but rusted cars; the ones that have good tyres (no mixed brands), a recent hood, evidence of mechanical upkeep, but now the owner is facing a Ā£1000 bill on a car he perceives as worth only Ā£1000, but he needs a car for work. At least one member of this forum went this route; a car with scruffy sill repairs, but otherwise honest, and is getting great fun out of it, without sweating whether the sills are misleading. If he likes the car enough, I am confident that the car will be more than worthwhile enough to properly repair.

Of course there is a limit. Rotted front wings add to the costs, repairs to the main sills and floorpan add. But, at the moment, these are relatively rare. Those cars with rusting in the rear sills; that is a very easily budgeted repair.

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