Rust Repair- Where To Go And Whats Your Experience?

[ausdrift]

So on one of my many trips under the R33 I have found a fairly noticeable section of rust at the rear jack point on the passenger side. Its big enough to need, I would believe, for a section of metal to be cut out and a new one welded in.

So Im assuming that any old smash repair shop could do this work, but on contacting one I find that this isn't the case and Id need to find someone who specialises in rust repair. So my questions are...

Do you know of anywhere reliable on the east side of the city that can do this work?

and

Have you repaired similar? how much did it cost you?

thanks

[Cowboy1600]

Ashwood Panels. I used to work next door. They were often working on some pretty special cars which is what caught my attention.

I had a chat to them re: rust removal in my Datto 180b a few years back. They said they were happy to do that kind of work. A lot of panel shops won't. All they want are the big margin insurance jobs.

[ausdrift]

OK cool, a good start. Any more suggestions/experiences?

[ausdrift]

any more?

[Cowboy1600]

Hurstbridge Smash Repairers. Again, they often have a resto project going at and are happy to do rust. Might be a bit out of your way, however.

I'd go check out Ashwood Panels (Cnr of Highbury Road and Ireland Street, Burwood)

[ausdrift]

Yep, going to check out Ashwood and 2 others in the area, lacey and AAA as all do rust. My wallet is quivering as we speak

[ausdrift]

Well, an update for anyone interested. I went to 5 shops in the same area. 1 was helpful, interested, gave a good look under the car at the rust and said they would get me a quote in 24 hours. 1 week and a follow up call later and I have still received nothing.

The other 4 didn't impress me, made little effort to check the area or take any useful steps to do so, and to be honest, I doubt were that interested. One was even a little patronising suggesting that "its going to cost more than $300/ you aren't going to get much work done with only 3 hours per side". This was without me at any time during the conversation mentioning budget, hours of labour or any expectation I had on cost.

So back to square one.

Any more suggestions of places to go? east is best, but its looking like I'll have to expand where I'm willing to go.

[Borci88]

Maybe give Holloway Panels in Bayswater a call, I know they just did a rust "touch up" on the strut towers of a 34 I know of. I think they'll be tackling more rust repairs on that car in future.

[Cowboy1600]

Which ones did you go to so people know not to suggest them.

[ausdrift]

Rather than name names, i'll just say that I saw 5 in total, all in the same area as Ashwood Panel. Ashwood did actually send the quote as promised, just a few days later so im happy for that. As with anything like this, have a chat to the person/shop and you can usually get a fair impression of what type of place it is/people work there, and therefore if you feel good leaving your car with them.

[Odium]

At the same time, some of them also throw out the "It'll be at least a few hundred" line to get rid of people who have no idea how the world works and expect 6+ hours of work on a car for $300, including materials...

I find when making first contact, you have to go in knowing what you're talking about and don't react negatively to the first few questions, then their defensive "this guy is going to waste my time and cost my business money" goes away and the real conversation can start.

[ausdrift]

Fair enough if I went in saying stuff like that, but the whole time my attitude was "here is my problem, what do we need to do to fix it, and what will it cost me", with an attitude of wanting to be educated on what needs to be done.

I even had one guy pressing me to name a figure of how much I expected to have to pay for this kind of work! What is this, the price is right? I went there to have the price told to ME, not the other way around.

I think some of them just didn't really want to do that kind of work...

[Cowboy1600]

Most of them don't what that type of work nor you as a type of customer. Most panel beaters are simply there to pull as much money from insurance companies as they possibly can.

Insurance jobs are big money so every hour they spend cutting out rust for $50 an hour is time they aren't spending making $150 an hour on an insurance job.

Note I said MOST. There are always exceptions to the rule.

Also I found Ashwood were a little tardy getting me a quote too. I had to go see them a couple times, but it eventually came and it was a fair price from memory. Having a look at some of their work in there, I would have been happy to pay it.

[fyjosh]

rust repair isnt that bad if you can borrow a friends mig, or even better borrow a friend who can mig.

cut out the rust, make a filler panel, fix any interior rust (which there will be, there always is) and slowly spot weld in the filler panel.

grind back your ghastly noob welds and paint. this would be pretty easy as its out of sight.

[Shoota_77]

I tend to agree with the above, do it yourself. I've done a fair bit of rust removal on my Datto ute (with zero prior experience in panel repair). I bought a cheap MIG, went and got some free scraps of plate steel from an engineering workshop and then just made up the panels. I made a sill panel section with a piece of steel plate shaped over a gutter to get the right curve! It's ideal if you can get to the inside to grind off the slag but if you can't get to it then who cares? No one is gunna see it unless they hack the car up again! Under body stuff is easy as you don't need to finish it off as well as panels, you just paint over it with body deadener and it'll look great!

[ausdrift]

As a brief postscript to this little adventure, I ended up getting Ashwood Panels to do it. I checked under the car recently and it all seems to look pretty good, so I'm going to therefore trust that they did a proper job.

[Cowboy1600]

Good to hear. I never saw much of their completed work but saw that they were trusted with some pretty special cars from time to time which says something. They wouldn't attract that kinda work if they were shit.