Rust on potential 205 1.9 Gti purchase

[trashy 1]

Hi Everyone,

 

Can anyone help me out here?

 

How bad is this rust?  

 

Likely cost to fix?

 

Whole car needs a respray really.

 

Cheers,

 

Paul

[Leslie green 81]

Impossible to say how bad it is until you start poking it , I suspect it will be a lot worse than it looks , the roof looks a bigger problem so far though.

[trashy 1]

Thanks.  Rust is always worse than you think

 

Does anyone have ballpark figures for these sort of repairs?  Are we talking £1k+ ? £2k+ ?

[Leslie green 81]

Once you need a respray you are probably into 2k already plus looking at how advanced that rust looks I'd say check the rest of it very carefully as the odd one rusted really bad where's most are solid enough. Sill area is common as are rear bumper side mounts and inner wings at front under wash bottle and Jack.Check boot floor too.Rust is time consuming and expensive to fix if you need to pay someone.

Also cracked blocks are very common as is rear axle play .

Edited June 13, 2018 by Leslie green

[Gaz205 50]

Once you start stripping it for a respray then you really do have to commit and open wallet theory... You'll have to budget for replacement bolts, clips, washers and all sorts of things you'll cut off or break in the process.

Dont go half hearted either it's a false economy.

The sill as mentioned is common, the roof looks odd to be fair. It's worth finding out what caused it to rot there.

Do your research when finding a body shop, not many will want to paint an old car, too much time and effort involved when they can push half a dozen newer cars through in the same time.

i certainly think 2k should see it nice though 

 

Edited June 13, 2018 by Gaz205

[Andy 105 1 Cars]

Agree with Gaz on the cost front, but not quite sure about the £2k unless you do all the stripping and rebuilding . When rebuilding, things really do start to add up as the natural tendency is not to want put damaged or imperfect bits back on shiny new paintwork, plus things like bolts, clips, seals , trim bits etc can see the costs go up. 

[Anthony 1,000]

In honestly, look elsewhere - that rust is going to be pretty bad once you start poking around and judging by how badly it's gone in the two photographed areas, chances are that it's going to be pretty grim in other places too.

 

Assuming that you've seen the car, was there evidence of major accident repair on the drivers side?  I've never seen a roof rust there and that B-pillar base looks to have seen attention before.

[dcc 855]

thats pretty bad on the B pillar, you'll find it is quite deep in the sill so will require quite a bit of thought and patience to sort, or a blank cheque and a body shop.

 

I've not seen a roof go quite like that, so i'd be tempted to say its had damage / a repair there in the past

[Tom Fenton 1,524]

Find another is my advice, you can see on the pictures its had filler layered on those areas before, once that is off you could uncover a can of worms. The roof area especially are prone to rot from the inside out.

[tartanbloke 35 1 Cars]

You may find that there is rust on the inside of the roof and running down the inside of the rear quarter to the sill and the work required to resolve will be labour intensive and may be horrendously expensive. If you are prepared for the challenge and willing to clear out all the rot as well as cutting panels out, then go ahead but if not, walk away and find another. 

 

As with a lot of vehicles of this age, the paint can hide your worst nightmares. 

[Ozymandis 96]

Walk away.

[Telf 222 2 Cars]

Is it for sale?

 

Is it cheap?

 

If not I'd pass.

[SootySport 23]

If it's really cheap, the parts would be of some worth when you break it.    I would run a mile from the rust on this one and there are a few rust free cars out there, just takes a lot of viewings to find one at a decent price.

[trashy 1]

Thanks all.

 

I've decided not to proceed as, like you say, there are likely to be other rust issues with the car 

 

A few years back I would have bought it, had my fun and hoped the rust wouldn't kill the car too quickly.

 

Unfortunately the asking prices for 80s/90s fun cars are now too high for this to work.

[Gaz205 50]

Love is blind on these cars. On a positive note someone told me to scrap mine before I semi restored it and yesterday I had someone taking pics of it above my mates chimera and a pre production Bentley that my aero engineer friend had on test on a drive out so anything is possible.

like Andy said once you restore one part of a car it shows up other parts as looking tired so then you need to change bolts, clips, seals, trims etc. I was lucky in that I sourced my parts through the good people on here and had a huge part in stripping and rebuilding mine and my painter was my mate.

maybe attack in small parts or just dig deeper and buy one already done.

good luck