Rusting Floor pan
 

I posted this in the Exterior Forum, but this one gets much more traffic, so here it goes....

I have been watching a hole develop in the floor of my S5 for some time now...and it has gotten bad enough now that I gotta start doing something about it.

There are two holes actually, one on each side of the car, in about the same area. On the drivers side, the hole is slightly forward of the dead pedal, slightly back of the wheel well. The passenger side has a smaller hole in the same general location.

Now for the questions - is this common in our cars? I know a "real" fix is to weld a new piece of metal in the damaged area, however, as this car is my daily driver and law school is putting a huge hole in my wallet - so I dont think I can afford to pay a shop to this work. Is there anoter way? Perhaps rivering and sealing a patch panel there temporarily? Or some other trick?

I only need this patch to last a year...and it must be as cheap as possible!

Any suggestions? Experiences?
Thanks,
-a

Common if you live in a salted area. Every FC I see here has some rust on it unless it's been garage kept. I can easily stick my fingers up through the floor of my vert on both sides.

if you just want to keep out water- you can buy some aluminum flashing and some sheet metal screws. Cut the flashing to the correct size, put silicone caulk around the edges, and then screw it to the floor.
If you were closer I could easily weld something in. I had to replace half the floor on my T2 (previous owner smashed pass side floor to hell) and there was some other rust as well.

Ben

Very common.

The real way to fix it is to cut out all the cancer, then weld in another piece, then properly coat it. However, if you can't afford this, then at least remove the cancer and coat the entire area with POR-15. POR-15 is the rust destoryer. It stops existing rust, and prevents new rust. Not cheap though. And very nasty to work with.

Then, once you have the money, get it fixed properly.