Bodywork- Does This Sound Reasonable

[PVFCpug 6]

Putting the pugster in a Resto. shop over the XMas break to get some work done. Mainly the sills/quarter panel rot at the join. It has started to come through the last few months and looks to be getting worse each time I look, the rest of the body seems good barring a few rust blemishes in the engine bay which I am not too concerened about.

 

A screwdriver went straight through the bottom of the nearside sill and a few pints of water drained out quite nicely . I believe this builds up as there are drain holes which at some point have been oversprayed previously at the bottom of the sills and the water originates from the Sunroof drainage.

 

Lesson learnt from this is to keep the drain holes clear at all times.

 

Anyway work being carried out is complete sills being removed, replaced and the rear-quarter repaired back to fresh metal with new metal going in to replace. Rust treatment to inner sills (assuming they are OK). All work will be prepped ready for spraying including filling, rubbing down, and applying stonechip to spray over on the sills. Estimate has been given at about £4-500 which should give me aprstine body for an '88 F plate. Paint work on top of that should be about £200.

 

I am actually questioning my own mentality I think . Given that I have no garage facility myself to work in and am not particularly mechanically minded, have I gone the best route to get the pug sound or with someone else doing the labour what would the comparitive cost of a re-shell have been?

[Paintguy 0]

If you were to pay a professional to do a reshell, the cost would be ridiculous! And even then there's no guarantee of getting a perfect shell. After all this time, and given the nature of the car, I bet there are very few 205's on the road that haven't had a fair amount of bodywork done on them.

 

I wouldn't say the quoted price is excesive, as there's a lot of work involved if they're doing the job properly. Simply sticking on a pair of sills would be much cheaper than that, but whenever the words "restoration" and "rust removal" are involved, it always means a heck of a lot of extra work, and thus cost.

[Henry Yorke 269 3 Cars]

Hiya. I think you popped in to see my brother at one point and he gave you a couple of options: make it look pretty or do it properly!!

 

You have to ask yourself how long you plan on keeping the car and whether you want to spend a fortune on it to make it mint or spend the same money on trackdays and enjoying it and go faster bits!! If you think your relationship with your 205 is a marriage as opposed to a bit of a fling, you ought to spend some money on it. If not, then just ride it like a Derby winner and get another one when it goes pop!!

 

Also consider the quality of the paint you want as this determines the price on top of the repair.

 

As has been said, most 205's will have had some work on them by now. Sills and inner wings are the places to go.

 

Hope this helps