Check out the hack n pack shop on youtube. The guy does rusty rocker replacements all the time. I dont think its a death sentence (given its not TOO far gone). It can be cut out and redone. It should help you get a nice discount when buying it.
Yeah…I’ve got a friend of a friend who owns a body shop.
I’ll get a quote in writing from him and wave it about maybe.
I looked at a few of those videos. I like to watch them and try and learn a little, but really, some of those are strictly hack jobs and will not last. You can just sand down some rust and spray it with Rustoleum and cover it with fiberglass. It’ll be back in no time. Then the other guy using a carpenters hammer to form sheet metal and just filling in big holes with Bondo. Bondo absorbs water so it has to be sealed all around and you can’t just use it to form and fill fender holes. So I don’t know, take all of those with a grain of salt. You really need to get rid of all the rust and weld in new metal.
@Demo_Beta, if this is typical where you live, you really need to look out-of-area. Ring up @Yosemite and take him up on his offer. If your like me and keep cars until the bitter end, it would be best to start with a car with a decent life expectancy. Rusted out rocker panels on these are cars with cancer waiting for the crusher.
Someone isn’t listening. These cars rust from the inside. Repairing them from the outside does little to keep it from returning. Buy a car without rusted rocker panels and treat it yearly to keep it from rusting. This is the most valuable and safest way to deal with rust. Doing everything you can to prevent cancer is much much more effective then treating it. Stay away from rusted hulks ! The whole discussion is upside down. Get a car with a solid body and bad motor and you have a better chance of repairing the vehicle into something reliable and safe. I guess inspection laws in Detroit area are pretty lenient …if there are any.
I had a Buick century 15 yrs ago with rusted door bottoms. Local wrecking yard advertised rust free doors from ariz/Texas. I talked to yard and he actually said it would be a waste of money to replace my doors? What the heck? E said the doors should only be used on an otherwise “good” car. A car that may have been in an accident and was rust free to begin with. His point had some validity. But there were very few rust free, 10 yr old cars in my area. I would have a car with rusty rockers but good doors. Funny.
to the OP- after your earlier thread on the totalled Buick, and then this one, I find I must share a piece of advice that Tom and Ray have imparted in many columns: “it is the stingy person who spends the most”.
@Dr. Dyno
Not stingy, just smart.
I ended up getting $600 for that “totalled” Buick, and as far as I know it’s back on the road now. A shop bought it.
There are plenty of nice cars that have at least another 100k in them for under $4000, I’m just trying to weed out the stinkers.
Oh, you are a quasi car dealer out to make a buck. No problem then. Anything goes.
No. I just prefer to drive older, so called cheap, cars. That way I have three to five thousand to spend on other things over the course of a year.
After a few years, my cars are just as old and as cheap as yours. The difference is, they are never rusted, and I live in the salt area, and have all had 200k plus mileage capability because I had them since inception. You can save as much money as owning clunkers by keeping and maintaining cars from new or recently bought. The other difference is, my cars are much safer and I know how they were treated from day one. A good friend keeps all his cars for over thirty years doing this, and collects them all…but I guarantee that he has less $$$$ tied up in cars then you or I.
I buy my cars new and keep them forever or until they no longer serve my changing needs.
But it’s really a lifestyle choice. IMHO the OP’s strategy is better than people who repeatedly buy 5 year old cars hoping they’ll last forever… and often end up spending $2000 additional dollars to get them roadworthy again. No disrespect to those that do so. That’s simply another lifestyle choice.
My friend has shown me his expenses. He has all of these cars which, as a hobby he maintains. As cars reach a certain age and he can sell them as antiques, he then uses the money to buy a “new” car or other toy. He has a very long term outlook on cars. Of course, I think he is a little “anal” as his newer, one of several tractors that he uses to blow snow and till his mammoth garden (a 45 hp john :Deere ) and skid trees, looks absolutely spotless. The foot wells are always covered with a mat and he washes and touches up every nick after use. I have seen him work in nearly waist high mud and 30 minutes after he finishes, it looks new.
The advantage, if he feels like driving his Thunderbird convertible one day, he does. If he wants to take his BMW motorcycle out, he does. If he wants to off road with his old Powerwagon, he does. His winter car that he keeps snow tires on is a 94 ACCORD that looks show room new yet was driven daily to work, 30 miles over winter roads that were heavily salted for years. It was a step up from his VW that he used for twenty years before…that is stored now.
Can’t say as I really disagree with anyone. Making an extra $5000 has the same result as saving $5000 (after tax of course). Sometimes its easier to spend your time making an extra $5000 and more fun, but it is a life style thing. I have never and will never drive a car with rust, regardless of how old they were. So if they had rust, I fixed them so they looked good. But it was pride, not money.
Maybe take the savings this year and go to Disney and while there pick up a rust free Florida or Georgia car to bring back. An old duffer mechanic told me once that you can always repair mechanical things but once they start to rust, that’s the end.
@Demo_Beta
This isn’t much help, I suppose . . .
there are plenty of cheap cars in southern California that don’t have any rust
Unfortunately, they’re probably poorly maintained and would need some cash infusion in order to pass your state’s safety inspection