Underbody corrosion

[stuarttaylor37 13]

Hi

I will post pictures tomorrow but was wondering if corrosion on the front sills at the front wheelarch and crushed front jacking points is very expensive to have fixed?

[seanl82 23]

It's quite common Stuart, but it depends how far the rot goes. What you see isn't always the full extent as it travels under the underseal so it'll have to be ground off to get a true reflection.

If you can remove your wheel arch, carpet, and any trim surrounding the affected areas it'll be easier (cheaper) for a welder to do. I'd imagine it would be a couple of hundred for both sides to be cut out and new metal welded in.

[stuarttaylor37 13]

Thanks Sean,

 

Here's the photos (sorry about the quality but hopefully you get the idea

 

[seanl82 23]

The leading edge of the sills where it meets the front wing will absolutely need to be cut out. The rest doesn't look too bad though, you may be able to get away with grinding it back a bit as it looks mostly on the surface, then putting a bit of paint on before underseal mate. I've seen far worse so wouldn't stress too much. Worth getting it done sooner rather than later though as especially if you're using it in this weather, the water will get in between the exposed metal and the current underseal and spread like wild fire.

[stuarttaylor37 13]

Thanks again Sean

I have never had welding/bodywork done on a car before and was worried it was going to be really expensive

I'm going to take it to a body shop and get a quote this week, it needs doing sooner as you say though its in my TDI daily so is getting further seasoning with the salt going down the mo!

[dr_mat 0]

Cue: "when I were a lad .."

 

But it's true, when I were a lad cars 6 years old routinely needed welding it was a widespread and common practice. Now we're seeing Corrados reaching 25 years+ and they're only now starting to show up under the torch .. How far have cars come!

[eugopnosaj 0]

Mine failed on this at its last MOT, needed to cut a small section out and make a repair, easy enough to do, the only difficult bit is if you have to cut a part of the wing out like I did where the angle changes slightly so the replacement metal needs to be a bit creative to get the shape back.

[g0ldf1ng3r 15]

one side of my VR had this done last year

 

I got sill repair panels from VW Heritage, took about 4 weeks to arrive as they got them from classic parts in Germany

 

sill outer part numbers...

 

LHS 535809839A

RHS 535809840A

[Gti_Jamo 10]

Mine was like that., but yours looks worse. I ended up having to chop out about 10 inches of the sill, inner sill and a section of the floor to fix it properly. Managed to cut a section of sill further back out a donor car and use that to get the correct shape for the sill and just fabricated the rest.

 

[stuarttaylor37 13]

Thanks all, had a local garage quote £250 a side to pull the floor straight and fab up the sill pieces, just waiting for a response from a bodyshop that specialises in classics