StevenL5975

I always look under it, there was some relatively new undercoating on some spots, checked them with screwdriver, they were solid. Passenger side was abit rusted, thats why it needed to get welded to pass inspection.
I have it around 1,5 years now. I knew that there was some rust elsewhere under it, but i did not expect that much. Still its repairable but thats getting expensive.
He crushed the pinchwelds while jacking the car up, and drove it all day long in winter and summer. So with salt you may imagine... Thats how every other driver does it over here, so there are quiet a bit of rusted cars over here. people lack education on how to jack a car up. When I still went to shool few years ago, there was some guy who needed to use the sparewheel, jacked up the new car, and tried to loose the wheels by stomping with foots on the wrench while car jacked up *facepalm* Told him how to do it properly, and lend him my torque wrench which I always carry in the box to tighten the nuts back on ...

I already got the sidesills to weld in from mazda. 240$ per side. It is just about 70 cm long so it covers not the entire side sill. Rest needs to be fabricated.
I have around 8k $ budget to get these repairs done and get new paint. After speaking with a few good bodyshops, 8k might do the trick. Donor car would be royal gain in the lottery, but there are none over here ...

I am currently stripping the paint with chemical paint remover so the bill gets not too high.

Yes I have the receipts. I know their work, believe me they destroyed more on the car than they did right. (Example: Undercoating overspray over the sides ...)
There were a lot of different things that went wrong there, but I am too lazy to recall everything. Their reputation is not the best but actually not that bad. I actually dont feel in the mood to sue them for sth they did 1 year back. That a lot of trouble to get through.

Steven

StevenL5975

After long consideration and thinking about this topic I believe it would be best to put the car in an acid? (donīt know how you call it) bath and phosphor bath. First bath does remove paint and undercoating. Phospor bath does remove rust, and after that it will get a bath with galvanic primer to protect from rust and give a great substance to paint and work on.

As my car is almost to the state of a bare shell, this might be an opportunity. There is a company in germany who is specialised in car restoration, they do such things regulary. They have the tanks and the experience on this stuff.
Might be the easyer and more effective way to get things done right in the first place.
Pricewise it is about the same as the planned complete frame restoration. Plusside, bodyshop does not need to remove paint and spot rust places. They just need to fix holes remaining and weak spots (Which were previously rusted through or rusted) and paint it.

What do you think of that approach ?
Might be really worth it.