Rusty Arch / Sill Repair

BinnsY

BinnsY

BinnsY

Associate
Joined
19 May 2009
Posts
1,511
Location
Nottingham
Hi All,

Does anyone have any reccomendations for good body shops within the Nottingham / Derby area that I could look into for getting the rusty sill / arch sorted on my MX5? I have bubbling thats probably no wider than a 10p piece, but it goes around most of the upper arch starting a little forward of the middle, and curving all the way towards the rear centre of the arch. There is also a larger piece of rust underneath the sill just in front of the rear wheel, this has left quite a big crack and some of the metal on the outer skin has fallen away.

I've popped into Auto Body Tec today in Ilkeston today, and although they seem top notch their estimate seems rather steep at £600 to get the sill and arch done. It did seem to give quite a lot for the money though, cutting out all the rusty metal, welding in new stuff, and then priming / rust protecting that, then putting stone chip on the sill and re-priming before spraying and blending it in. They were estimating around 12 hours labour so with that in mind the price doesnt seem so bad.

I've come across another company called Cavendish Classic Cars based in Shardlow who I am going to attempt to get down to over the weekend for another estimate.

Does anyone have any first hand experience with either getting this kind of repair done on an MX-5 and the associated costs, or just general good bodyshop reccomendations in my area?

Thanks :)
 
I doubt you'll get a price significantly better than that. If they;ve a good reputation i'd go for it, sills and arches can go into four figures.
 
Yea I agree, the more I think about average labour rates and start multiplying that by the 12 hours they estimate it doesnt seem too bad. With all the googling I have been doing there seems to be lots of people managing to get repairs for around the £350 - £400 mark though. I'm going to make a post on MX5 Nutz later today or tomorrow as well, but I think it might be because people seem to get either rusty arches OR rusty sills, where as I need work doing on both.

If thats the case ill probably cough up the cash, it's just a little more than I was hoping.
 
In that case I'd recommend getting the entire underbody, including chassis rails, thoroughly looked at. A lot of corrosion issues have recently come to light, apparently the metal used to construct the chassis was a cheaper type of steel.
 
It's recently been up on the lifts at 5 Speed (a local specialist for some work on the brakes and alignment) and is pretty clean underneath. The rust seems to be completley isolated to that one rear arch.
 
It's the internals of the chassis rails I'd be worried about tbh :)

£600 seems a bit steep for a sill/arch repair and replacement, does that include paint/blending etc?
 
-westy- said:
It's the internals of the chassis rails I'd be worried about tbh :)

£600 seems a bit steep for a sill/arch repair and replacement, does that include paint/blending etc?
Click to expand...

Yes it did include all the painting and blending. I suppose with that in mind its not quite so bad? They had another MX5 in a couple of weeks ago that was actually the same colour as mind and its quite a large area they end up having to spray to do the blend.

Vigoro said:
Out of interest have you been cleaning the drain holes for the roof?
Click to expand...

Yes I have been, one was blocked when I initially got the car but I cleaned this straight away and its been fine since. I'm 99% certain it was the one where the rust now is. Some of the rust was there, and i've been keeping an eye on it to see if it's getting any worse. Unfortunately it seems to have accelerated over the last 3 or 4 months or so as it wasnt really spreading at all for a while. It's because of this I've decided it's time to get it sorted.
 
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