My 15 year old Black MK1 Fabia VRS past its MOT today and I'm a very happy bunny. However, I was advised that the corrosion around one part of the sill and the offside rear wheel arch needing addressing soon. 

 

So, has anyone got any tips on how to make a DIY spray job look good. Do places like halfords sell a good paint that matches well? 

Do's and Don'ts would be appreciated. 

 

Cheers. 

Pay for a smart repair, rattle cans look dreadful, especially on black.

The rust needs addressing and treating, cutting out, inhibiting etc and prepping, the painting part is the easy bit, but some joey job cover ups is a waste of time.

The Black Paint is simple for you to get right after all the rust is addressed. 

Youtube will be your friend, or Kerbside Autos someplace.

I don't have a problem with rubbing down, treating and filling the rusted areas. It hasn't eaten all the way through and a lot is just paint bubbling away. My concern is, as sepulchrave pointed out, a can spray will look rubbish. 

Because of the age of the car and not having a lot of cash, I can't afford hundreds of pounds to get it sorted, I'm guessing it's going to cost a lot. 

Smart repair is really not that expensive, certainly a body shop respray will be hundreds, but I doubt a smart repair would be much more than one hundred, especially if you you've already killed the rust and filled and primed it ready for paint.

 

Smart repairs are usually done on sound metal / plastic. Etched and prepared in a professional way.

 

Many painters will not just paint some repairs / cover up body filler and primers not know what is underneath.

 

Plenty body shops or painters will give a blast of paint for you on the pre-prapered panel. No guarantees or come back or VAT asked for.

Best ask locally first, let them see the rabbit or hare and then advise you and say if the are happy to give it a 'blow job'.

 

Just speaking as someone that was a vehicle repairer / refinnisher / painter.

Edited 28 October, 20187 yr by Offski

 

As you can see the sill is the worst, but its mostly top surface & the paint bubbling up.

 

When you guys mention 'Smart Repairs' are you talking about companies like chips away?

Edited 30 October, 20187 yr by Chris Berry

4 minutes ago, Chris Berry said:

When you guys mention 'Smart Repairs' are you talking about companies like chips away?

 

Yes, because they are tooled up for very accurate existing colour matching and painting smaller areas invisibly, I prefer independents rather than franchises because they're cheaper and usually better.

Is it really worth going through a paint booth ?
Trust me NOBODY is looking at your sills from underneath. I had mine similar recently and only noticed by looking from practically ground level ( and mine is yellow, so should stand out easier than black).
Form over function, more important to deal with the rust - look how bad that looks ! Anything is better than that rust to look at, even smooth black hammerite !
Although actually, yours is perhaps worse as its crept to top end of cill, I think mine was more underneath. I just masked it off and grinded it down clean.

Took a surprising amount of work with grinding wheel drill bit ( followed by wet and dry) to get to a cleaner metal before treating and then painting, so you will have similar, most important to get it as clean to metal as possible before painting ( on a good day).

The arches yes have to be done more sympathetically on matching paint. Although I think I could DIY it to a reasonable undetectable level myself, going through several stage of rust protection, filling where necessary, priming, coating, etc.

Its not the tool but how its used, a spray can is not a magic wand and you have to be symathetic to its limitations, how to best use it, how to mask properly to avoid spray you don't want it, most important is building up the flat finish first with primers. Time and patience comes into these sort of jobs, which I guess most don't have and assume the magic wand approach and then wonder why the 10 minutes they attributed to deal with the finish problem looks sheite.

 

Edited 4 November, 20187 yr by vRSAnt

@Chris Berry My car, as with many Fabia's, has the same issue as yours with rust on the sills, arches and a slight amount forming on the bottom of front doors. The arches and doors are going to be done at a bodyshop but the sills I going to do myself, probably this weekend. They're going to be ground back, have several coats of Bilt Hamber Deox-Gel applied on any rusty areas, then be coated in BH Electrox Zinc coating and finally stone chipped in black. Probably a bit over the top but I'll post some picture when its done!

I reckon with some basic rust care the rest of the car will be obsolecent before anything rusts through significantly so pointless to be obsessive, it won't be a classic car I'm afraid ( although a fuel change could  be interesting that would maintain my interest in the car lol).
Probably fuel price to consider too and maybe VED. Still, running mine to death while I can.

Edited 9 November, 20187 yr by vRSAnt