mot welding advice please

[izzies]

hi. im just looking for your thoughts and opinions please!.. my little micra failed its mot. the kwikfit mot guy found two holes on the inner drivers side sill one about 4inches long at the back of car and the other about 1.5inch at the front. i took it into the garage who after having it all day gave it back to me with nothing done at all except he made the rear hole even bigger - about 15inches long now and quoted me £200 at least to fix it. i had to book it back in with him as i didnt have time today to get anymore quotes, but is this way to expensive for that work?

thanks

 

[sr20bud]

:wow: thats extortionate mate for a couple of holes and they will probably make a mess of it if there like the garages up here. i would shop around mate. i have know a guy up here he sorted my exhaust (just the back box and repaired a hole) did the two sills at the back and something else and he only charged me £45 and it was an awesome job no blobby welds it was the proper c's i couldn't believe it. so yeah shop around.

 

[porkpie700]

£50 job bro, and that's for a top knotch job. If you don't shop around you WILL get ripped off. When there's money involved always make time for it no matter what else you've got going on.

 

[izzies]

Thanks

i forgot to say its the inner sill around the rear suspension Got another quote today also for £200 too. so waiting for another to get back to me on monday but looks like it'll be a big chunk of savings going. oh well.

 

[porkpie700]

Barter with the guys, haggle em down coz at the end of the day it's only costing them an hours' worth of wages for their welder and just a very small ammount of materials. They charge you 200 but pay their welder like £8 or £9 for the hour they spend on your car. Tell em; listen brother i know you can give me a better price than that. Never just accept the first price they give you because they always start high to see if they can get away with it. You are the customer, you have the ball in your court, play the game to your advantage (Y)

 

[sr20bud]

yep what porkpie said cause they will only be the ones losing out if they turn you down. i would never pay that. and you could by a decent mig welder and do it yourself for that price.

 

[frank]

those rear inner sill area,s near the axle trailing arm mounts are really awkward to fix izzies and may be why the quotes are high (but they are very easy to rustfroof/prevent fwn)

 

[MLC2]

They can get really horrible - I did one of mine recently and had to cut out and replace a large chunk of the rear inner and outer sills plus front of rear arches. Took me ridiculous amount of time.

 

[lucifer]

Sounds about right to me mate, i know the guy welding it only gets paid £8-9 pounds or a little more if he is really good, but he does not have the overheads like, the garage building, employers liability, public liability, electricity, admin, I won't go on but you get the picture. It is really hard to actually make money from employing people mate. Plus if you haggle em down they will just rush it and that is when you end up with a crap job and then moan how crap they are (Not you but people). We will not negotiate on price, it is what it is, But we don't ever cut corners either. The old saying you get what you pay for is still alive i'm afraid. If you have had two quotes of £200 and then another comes in at £50.00 I know which one i would stay away from personally.

 

[sr20bud]

Sounds about right to me mate, i know the guy welding it only gets paid £8-9 pounds or a little more if he is really good, but he does not have the overheads like, the garage building, employers liability, public liability, electricity, admin, I won't go on but you get the picture. It is really hard to actually make money from employing people mate. Plus if you haggle em down they will just rush it and that is when you end up with a crap job and then moan how crap they are (Not you but people). We will not negotiate on price, it is what it is, But we don't ever cut corners either. The old saying you get what you pay for is still alive i'm afraid. If you have had two quotes of £200 and then another comes in at £50.00 I know which one i would stay away from personally.

i can sort of understand that but i wouldn't get a job done for £50 if i dint know who was doing it. but my mate just got some welding done on his transit and it was terrible ive never seen welding that bad in my life and they charged him £600 what a joke. the could of at least ground it down but they wont do cause they like to save every penny. the guy i knew was an ex-shipyard welder but his welding was spot on. he dint charge too much cause he said he wouldn't get any customers and he did the job properly so he had a good reputation so people would use him.

oh and he is polite and doesn't talk in the usual pikey slang that most garage owners/mechanics do and if you ask me that helps a lot in a business i know 2 guys who have scrap yards and one is a idiot and you cant make out what hes saying and he never has customers and the other is decent polite and runs a friendly well set out scrap yard and isn't afraid to help anyone.

 

[porkpie700]

If you have had two quotes of £200 and then another comes in at £50.00 I know which one i would stay away from personally.

The £200 one, coz this cost £50 and i certainly ain't dissapointed with it;

As i say shop round and find the right people (Y)

 

[MLC2]

This is what mine looked like when I had cut the rot out back to good steel

 

[lucifer]

Sr20bud, I'm afraid that in business people become like that from dealing with people that want something for nothing, of course a one man band welder is going to do a cheaper job because as i said no overheads, but i bet if your car accidentally caught fire and burnt out whilst he was welding it his public liability wouldn't pay out, mainly cause he hasn't got any. In my opinion it all comes down to what value you put on your car, and as you said you have two friends that work in scrap yards so i don't expect yours owes you very much.

 

[r-reg-sr]

This is what mine looked like when I had cut the rot out back to good steel

thats some really nice prep shots

 

[izzies]

Thanks for the reponses

Another quote today of £300 plus vat. So in on thursday for the £200+ whatever else he finds. just hope it passes the retest after all this

MLC2, Thats not far off how mine looks now, only its the inside sill so far

 

[lucifer]

Obviously the most important thing is for them to cut all the old grot out and then weld new metal in, And then give it a huge shot of Wax oil or cavity wax. The welding of the plates is actually a very small part of the job really, its the cutting back and re making of the plates etc......

 

[lucifer]

The £200 one, coz this cost £50 and i certainly ain't dissapointed with it;

As i say shop round and find the right people (Y)

Nice over welding, Grot still in me thinks just now sandwiched. Still not bad for £50.00 just that it will probably need it again in a couple of years.

 

[porkpie700]

Not the case sir, the grott was chopped and the area treated. The plates overlap by a half inch onto clean metal. I was there personally while the work was done, and that cill is now completely waxoyled.
You sound like you either own or at least work for a garage and i can understand you standing up for garages, weather it be just yours or all in general. It isn't right though for you to poo-poo the work of the smaller independant welder businesses out there, especially since you aren't there personally to witness the work take place. I agree that there are a plethera of horror stories out there regarding independant entities, but the same is also true of larger "propper" garages.
At the end of the day it's about finding the right people in the right places, and i am fortunate to have found people like that.

 

[MLC2]

I'm not the worlds best welder but this is how it ended up.

 

[MLC2]

I'm not the worlds best welder but this is how it ended up.
View attachment 19290
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P.S. can any one tell me how to embed images in the message?

 

[karlj]

best off using photobucket the copying the

link

 

[lucifer]

Porkpie 700, Comments i made retracted. and apologies to you. Just drives me mad when people want things done for nothing and expect a first class job for 5th class monies. I agree you take your chances who ever you use, but normally (well should be) a garage should do it right as they have a reputation to protect although as in all trades there are some people who have no morels.

 

[will930]

thats not true in a way i paid peauts for my old wishbone to be cut out and chassis leg slightly straightened and new wishbone put in! my car had to be left on a ramp becaause the wrong lower arm was sent.... this job included 2 gaitor changes and tracking for £80 quid for about 9 hours work and i cannot ault it at all