Bah. This obviously isn’t going to solve anything, just sanity checking myself, really – but I’ve been under the car today and I’m pretty disappointed with some sill repair I had carried out in back December 2014. Question is, am I expecting too much? Or in fact worrying over nothing…
I went well out of my way to use one of the best known names in the country to do the work (I’m not going to name them, because I can’t see how that is going to help anything), and the total invoice for the sill work came to £907 (plus the VAT… plus the train fares, etc, etc), and the car has maybe 4000 miles (probably less) on it since the work was done. Here’s how it looks as of this afternoon.
Offside:
Nearside:
I’m no expert, but the way the finish is crumbling away smacks of poor surface preparation to me. And this of course is just what I can see – there was inner sill work as part of the job. I did ask for photographs of the work as it progressed at the time but sadly they never materialised.
All of this is also after the car has been back to them once already for some remedial work for this:
To give them their due, they tackled this without quibble, and the work is still under guarantee. But I’m so disappointed with what’s happened so far, and I’m staring down the barrel of around £200 in train fares in order to get the car there and back again, I’m really not sure to do.
My car is no concours queen, I just want it to be solid and rust resistant. Especially as I was just about to pull the trigger on a load of engine work.
So, tell me I’m being ridiculous and that’s about all I can expect from any sill repair – or that I’m worrying over nothing – and you might just cheer me up…
I think most of what you are looking at is surface rusting; the repair panels on the market seem to be mostly Chinese. I doubt the quality of the priming matches OE. The rust streaks on the inside suggest further rusting; on the new metal work, it might be just surface rusting. Sill repair on my 96 has held up 5 years, and is starting to flake; the original bits are bubbling. The other sill (original) has now advanced bubbling.
I think your issue is easily rectified, but underlines when repairs have been done, its never to the original standard, no matter what some repairers claim. You probably have to include annual internal cleaning and treatment of the sills as part of regular maintenance.
As above really but that offside sill needs to be stripped back for a better look, I’m no expert but it looks like the seam hasn’t been sealed/welded properly and the rusty water has been weeping out. Unless of course it’s just the joint needs retreating, rust inhibitor and another coat of paint/stone chip.
I do not think this is a good job. Did they spray the inside of the sill with a rust inhibitor after the work was done ?. My local man always sprays the inside of sills and box sections after working on them. I have had work done on my 25 year old car and have not had this happen in 4 years.
The frustrating thing is that on my first MX-5, I simply found a local mobile welder with a good reputation and he charged me £90 to cut out and replace a rusty section; I wire-brushed the surface rust off the sill ends, applied Hydrate 80 and epoxy primer to the bare metal, put Dynax S50 on the inside, and then carefully repainted the black sections with nothing more than satin Hammerite, and it not only came out better it lasted longer as well. This time I thought I’d get professionals to do it…
I understand how you feel; there does seem to be a lot of codswallop around that somehow MX5 repairs are unique, and need specialist expertise.
As for applying mystery “rust inhibitors” to the inside; owners have no control over how this is applied, nor even what is used (does anyone really believe the many so-called tests of these coatings?). I suspect a certain specialst who offers an extended warranty is able to do so, on the basis that a certain percentage will always rust out early, and the cost of rectifying these is more than covered by the increased charges made.
Not disputing that I can fix it – see earlier post. My frustration is that I paid a lot of money to someone else so that I wouldn’t have to… I presumably also invalidate my guarantee if I start mucking about myself. But perhaps I should just write that cost off.
Anyway, you have listed some interesting products there. In terms of rust converters, I’d probably stick with Hybrate 80 on the outside, and was thinking of using Fertan on the inside – but I like sound of that Dinitrol aerosol; will investigate further. Thank you.
I’ve used Ferpox single pack epoxy primer previously – exceedingly confidence inspiring stuff as you apply it. But again, the Bondaprimer sounds interesting, so I’ll look that up, too. Cheers.
I believe there is some kind of cavity gunk in the car already – any thoughts on what I can use to clean this out? No point applying rust correction over the top of that!
I’m a bit surprised to see how rough the (paid for?) final black anti-chip looks tbh.
I’ve just had new sills and arches done by a pukka coachworks up here…and it’s got the OEM stonechip on, although it;s a Mk2.5.
I’d remove the seat belt mounting trim panels and get a camera inside the sills tbh.
As said, it looks more like surface at the moment but I notice a lot of shrinkage & cracking in the black stuff…as you know…perfect conditions to let moisture & salt in to start you-know-what all over again.
Bottom line so far as far as I can see is it’s sortable if not allowed to continue for too long.
I cannot see how you’d get into every nook and cranny to clean previous stuff out completely without cracking open the sills…but I’d say that’s for them to worry about.
I’d leave a cheap camera with them as I did up here and tell them to take stage photos.
They might not like that. Tough.
TBH, I’d be asking for something towards the travel costs…but then I vote SNP.
No kidding. Am also dealing with the perils of ancient old-school underseal elsewhere, which seems to have done nothing more useful than trap moisture against the metal surface of the wishbones, rear subframe, etc, etc…
I’m starting to suspect I’m going to need to go over the entire underside with a wire brush.
