NCT fail corrosion, advice!

freshpopcorn

Hi!
I've being asked to post here for somebody who's car that failed the NCT due to corrosion.
It's located on the drivers side roughly under the drivers foot well.
They've being told various things about getting it repaired. Some saying it's possible and others it isn't.
Thanks in advance!

conzy

First two pictures didn't look too bad. 3rd looks awful.

Give it a few belts of a hammer and see how it goes:)

freshpopcorn

The photos make it look larger than it actually is.
Here's another two pictures which shows the worst area.

MarkAnthony

We could be looking at pictures of Mars TBH.

The only way to find out what the extent is to wire wheel/sand blast the area and see what is revealed underneath. Then cut off the weak metal and weld in new bits as required.

Wibbs

What Samih said. From those pics it looks pretty awful. I will have nightmares tonight. The rust you can see is always the tip of the iceberg. Rust all the way through like that and with laminations in the steel is not good and likely goes a fair way along under the paint. As for repair? It's pretty much always possible. It's the costs involved and the quality of repair. Unless there's a specific manufacturer or OEM panel available that means making up patches in new steel and welding them in. Perfectly doable, but time consuming so costs go up. So you have to offset that with what the car is worth. I960's Maserati? No debate. 2002 base model hatchback? Well it would want to have some real sentimental value(which IMH is a value).

That's the job done properly of course. A bodge job that cuts out the worst and covers up the holes with fibreglass, filler and paint might get it through the NCT, but I'd not want to be in any sort of impact in a car like that.

Plus if there is rust like that in one spot, the chances are high that the tinworm is hard at work eating away unseen in other deep areas of the car. Rust nearly always kicks off and spreads faster along edges and in box sections(chassis members, sills, wheel arch inners etc, edge of bonnets/boots/doors) that you can't see. Until it bubbles through the paint. Having learned that the hard way early on and from observations of mates cars, this is why at this stage my car is more anti rust waxes and fancy unguents than car. Even so once annually in summer it's up on axle stands and me underneath with a torch and a worried face.

orm0nd

Wibbs wrote: »

That's the job done properly of course. A bodge job that cuts out the worst and covers up the holes with fibreglass, filler and paint might get it through the NCT, but I'd not want to be in any sort of impact in a car like that.

.

it will have to welded to pass nct,

Wibbs

orm0nd wrote: »

it will have to welded to pass nct,

Sadly I would not bet on that at all. The recent RTE half arsed "expose" on the test showed that. Another recent thread had a chap with a car that passed the NCT and within four months of that said chap found structural rust and no way can a car go from no rust to holes in floors and subframes in four months. Unless he parks overnight in a rock pool by the sea and even then… I'd be willing to bet the price of a Dublin city centre pint that what happened was a previous bodge job fell out revealing the holes.

Because the testers are naturally not allowed to damage cars, they are quite restricted and can only strength test so much and a "decent" bodge job will get through. Hell a riveted plate and then back filled with liquid metal and covered in underbody paint would easily pass a visual and would even resist a fair bit of screwdriver pokery and pass a magnet test, but would be as structural sound as a wet cornflake. Now on a retest like in this case chances are much slimmer of a bodge passing as the area is already up for scrutiny, but on a first, usual annual, not expecting to see structural rust NCT then yeah, well hidden bodge jobs will get through.

Personally, if I was buying an older car a fresh NCT would tell me a lot and is very helpful, but on certain areas like body rust I'd be doing the hard looking myself.

This is not a reflection on the test or the testers. There's only so much they can be expected to see. Unless Superman passes his X ray vision around.

savagethegoat

the odd thing is if you were to weld a patch over a hole in a rusty sill, it would pass the NCT even though it probably didn't add much strength. I had a Sierra with rusty sills, and was shown an identical car patched thus that passed.

(I'm not a great welder, but I made a much better job of mine and you couldn't see it.

porsche boy

orm0nd wrote:

it will have to welded to pass nct,

Regrettably not. I know a garage that uses a silicone sealer to bond replacement patches on and they pass the NCT. Pointless & dangerous as it is the attitude of this sham garage is 'the NCT passed the repairs so it's acceptable'.

freshpopcorn

Thanks for the advice. I jacked the car up to have a look at the rust and it's honestly hard to tell. It shouldn't have rusted so much since the last NCT. Mechanic said the same.
They got a different mechanic to look at it and he said he wasn't sure but he's getting a guy to have a look at it.

freshpopcorn

NCT passed and corrosion fixed!