How many hours welding?

[80's Classic]

[url]

|http://thumbsnap.com/4U5MqMBj[/url]

My Mk 2 Golf is in the body shop at the moment for a respray. They've done a great job but I've just received the final bill and I have a question about a little 'extra' that has been carried out. As you can see there was a 'small' area of rust on the rear arches, so the body shop cut the rot out and welded in new arches - both sides have been done. I was just told that the arch panels were cheap, but how long it would take / cost wasn't mentioned.

As I say the workmanship is very good, but I'm startled as to how long it took, (I know nothing about how long welding takes) so I'm asking for a second opinion please.

Any idea long it would take to remove the inner and outer arch panels and weld new ones in?

Thank you in advance for any replies.

[TPS]

Quite a long time ie many hours.

Thirty minutes to remove old outer arches.
Then an hour to remove the inner arch.
An hour to position and weld the inner arches in.
Then fit/cut to size outer arch and weld in place so another hour.

Before you know it,there's 3 and half hours before you add filler work to blend in the new outer arches ready for paint.
Double that time and you have 7 hours work plus filler work.

[80's Classic]

And if they are telling me it's taken longer than the 7 and a half hours for EACH side are they either slow welders or have they seen me coming?

As I only got the bill last night I will be asking for a proper breakdown today.

[fatjon]

7.5 hours/side is taking the P. But it does also look like the sills are shot in the pictures which is also a few hours per side.

[paintman]

Big pile of crap on the ground under one of your pics & if that's mainly rusty stuff there's a lot more corrosion than your pics show. If the outer skin is like that, I wouldn't be surprised if the inner arch & both sides of the sill needed work.
I do all my own welding (MIG & Arc although the arc rarely gets used) & you don't really know what you're going to find until you start cutting all the rust out & it can be surprising what you do find. May need to be fabrication of bits from sheet steel plus fitting whatever panels come as pre-made. Properly fitting it all back together then the filler work to blend it all before the painting - as opposed to just slapping a bit of plate on here & there & covering it with underseal - is very time consuming.

Edited by paintman on Wednesday 11th December 20:57

[retropower]

All depends how well it has been done.

I can slap an arch on in a couple of hours, but to do it properly, bearing in mind that looking at yours it also needs the inner arches repairing, the rear of the inner and outer sills repairing, and possibly parts of the rear beam mounts too, then I would be estimating in the region of 2 6 hour days each side, total of lets say 20 hours to do the metalwork, then the prep and paint on top of that. That's at £25 an hour.

Less than that and a corner has probably been cut somewhere, as we are NOT slow!

[retropower]

PS that is done properly I.e. you cannot tell that it has been repaired, or see any join lines inside or out, by the way.

[TPS]

80's Classic said:

And if they are telling me it's taken longer than the 7 and a half hours for EACH side are they either slow welders or have they seen me coming?

As I only got the bill last night I will be asking for a proper breakdown today.

7 hours is a rough guess and that's more a minimum time scale.

Once you add filler work of 2 hours per side,you are up to 11 hours.

Then there could be more hours to add to the bill if more metal work etc was needed.

[80's Classic]

I spoke with the garage yesterday and they went through how long it all took. As has been commented, some additional fabrication work was needed too. The garage didn't actually know the invoice had been sent out - it hadn't been checked by the owner.

Again, the workmanship is very good and the car looks better than new. However, it's always nice to have a sense check / second opinion.

Thanks for all the replies.