Will it hold up...

[autxr]

Well, I had enough side panels out of the car last night to see the underlying body work.

I don't know if I should be impressed or not, I haven't seen much professional body work.

Many of the new welds were obvious (as was some burning through the sheet metal, but it's hard to say which stuff was new welds and which was acetylene torch cutting of old metal. Kind of odd. It was clear a little filler was used here and there to smooth the seams on the outside (to be expected), as it had pressed through some of small spaces.

It will be interesting to see how the work stands up to chassis flex. Fortunately even a bad looking weld is often stronger than the surrounding metal.

So far I haven't noted any leaks or anything, so that is good, no rattles either. They did forget to put the rear tray back in so we don't have a private cargo area right now.

I'm a little disappointed at the re-assembly of the interior. It seems they chose to use whatever nuts and bolts they picked up first rather than the ones they removed originally. Several don't match their mirror image on the other side of the car...

Oh well, nothing I can't fix with a little work and $10.

Scott

[pitcrew]

Glad to hear you got it back! How'd the repaint come out? Today's body fillers are more flexible than the metal, and if applied to prepared bare metal and not >1/4" thick will hold without problems. Even most of the top customizers use synthetic fillers today. I'm surprised to hear they torched anything tho. Usually they will drill out or airchisel through the spotwelds and respot weld the new panel in place, torch heat can lead to much warping. I did watch my cousin heat shrink out a fair sized stretched dent with a torch and wet rag though.

[Raymund]

slopy internal work is quite a fad among body shops. its almost a given. they figure its often never seen by the average owner anyways. like you said a slopy weld is still a weld. you didn't mention anything about the outer panels so I assume they did a good job on that? did they replace it or was it repaired? good luck.

[autxr]

The panel is new from the passenger door back to the tail light, up to the C pillar (I'm pretty sure they took it up that high).

They also had to replace 2 supports behind te panel (the ones that the factory forgot to weld in the early car for some folks).

A little smoothing here and there with filler to hide the welds and seams then some fresh paint.

You From the outside you would not know it is a new panel, just a painted one. The paint match is very good, you just can't get a factory texture with a paint gun. That is the only difference.

Scott