Hi Advice sought: I am considering purchasing a fairly low milage 308 GTS from 79 with a good service history in the UK. However, the car has rust bubbles in the following places: A) Bottom of both doors B) Sill below the doors C) Lower body in front of rear wheel D) Rear corner, just above rear fibre glass valance Questions: 1) How bad does this sound - or would it be normal? 2) Would the rust likely to have spread to the floor plan and tubular frame 3) Could this be fixed without replacement of pannels / major body restoration? 4) How much would it cost? 5) Any ideas of what companies in south east UK to contact to complete work? Any other ideas / advice? Thanks Dave
A rule of thumb that I use; multiply the size of each rust bubble by 3. That is usually the minimum of actual rust that you DON"T see. It is usually more than that. Judging from the extent of the rust I would say a total body restoration is in order but being budget minded one could fix only the affected areas that would require painting the entire car after which rust can still reform in areas not previously reworked. Even if you were to do most of the work yourself I would guess an absolute minimum of 3,800 EU's (2,700 GBP) based on material costs in the USA. More than likely you will find it will cost more because of the replacement cost of various rubber moldings and trim. If this car was in absolutely perfect/near new mechanical condition I might consider it, otherwise I wouldn't go near it. Ask for an 8,000 EU discount for starters or walk. My .02 USD's DJ
I agree completely with Spasso. Someone backed-up into my 308 a year ago and while it was in the body shop, I decided to have a couple other imperfections fixed. Rust is a cancer and the little bubbles you see are 25% of the rust. Most of the time it is not surface rust and they need to get in there and dig a bunch of crap out. Just my little imperfections cost me ~$1400/US. But...that cost is with a top-notch body shop.
Another rule of thumb. Rust forms in all of the places you can't get to without disassembling that part of the car, I.E., "nooks and crannies". Let me put this another way. After owning and selling 30+ cars I have found that when doing repairs on a car from a labor/cost standpoint it is less expensive to fix the mechanical items on a car than extensive cosmetic and interior items.
But, on a positive sidenote: the floorpans on a 308 can't rust.They are made of fibreglass. And I've never heard of terminal corrosion on the oval section steel that the chassis (or mainframe) is built from, it's too thick. On my first 308 I had the same rust in the same (typical 308) areas as you, and the restoration included about 30 hours of sheetmetal and reconstruction work on each door alone.....
The little door "ding" in the pic below cost the person who did it (note it was NOT me) almost $1500. While it was there I also fixed the two small rust bubbles that were showing on the rear quarters (just forward of the side markers and about the 1-1/2" dia each) and that cost me almost $3,000. Total of $4300 but the car is now over 50% new paint. In hind-sight I would have spent the extra money and had them do the rest too. The only areas that aren't done now are the pasenger door and front fender & hood. Image Unavailable, Please Login
