Some of you who read this might not be aware of the drama that my C110 has been through in the past, so I thought I would bring it up to date. I’ve been quite apprehensive in starting on the right hand side of the C110 and the bad weather and lack of equipment has also played a part in the delay in continuing the strip down of paint and the inevitable bog. My concern about what I’m going to tackle shortly (hopefully start on it tomorrow or in the weekend) stems from being the victim of a tourists inability to give way, at a Give-Way. The result was this;
Quite possibly the worst place to hit.
As you can somewhat see from this picture (more so in the subsequent pictures), the corner of a stupid late model Nissan Pulsar rental managed to nudge directly into the apex of the bodyline, the door only taking a minor scuff and the wheel not too bothered. The shut did get pulled around however, not good.
Pinched steel up near the window
This angle shows the severity of the indentation
My resulting anger and yelling at the time caused more than a couple of people to exit their houses to investigate the raucous. This initial pain was then furthered by the several months of battling with the insurance company of the rental car, to get my car repaired. 4 months went by with numerous emails and meetings taking place, an assessor was sent out who tried to tell me what my car was worth and many more annoyances before this started to happen;
On the chassis machine to make sure it's all gravy, pulling started
Thankfully, the dent came out quite well, better than I expected but as you can see here, it showed what I discovered later on the other side. Immense amounts of filler.
From the other angle.
What you may have noticed here is that the place fixing the car decided they wanted to pull and fix rather than replace the quarter, as I had hoped. To this day I regret not forcing the Insurance company to go to my preferred beater. I had thought the place used would do a good job, I have a feeling that this isn’t the case at all though and I will find out shortly just how many shortcuts were taken. Afterall, the result of them pulling instead of replacing meant this was inevitable;
Filler, anyone?
…and what about that all important body-line?
Well, filler! Of course!
Some of you may be wondering why I let them do such a thing and the answer is simple, I was fed up. After 4 months I just wanted my car fixed, I wanted it back, I wanted to drive it. So, in part it’s my own fault, I guess… …anyway! after many visits to the body shop when-ever I could, the car started taking shape again;
At least until this point, where you may note that although there is a lower line (made out of filler) it’s in the wrong place. Miles too high up, and it had been sent to the paint shop like this.
Needless to say I drove to the paint-shop and told them it had to go back to get fixed; they did just that and the end result looked exactly like this;
Not perfect, (the top body line is wobbly where it meets the arch and the bottom one barely shows) but it was “done” and I had my car back, I was happy. At least for a while, that while being about 1 and a half months later when a crack in the paintwork appeared below the rear quarter window. At the time I just didn’t want to take it back and I have no desire to ever use said beater again and have informed others of such things too, so that crack has been left to fester since then. Not the best I know but I have a feeling that it’s going to be the least of my worries.
Soon we’ll see just how shabby the rest of the “fix” was.
I’m nervous.
-Michael
Thats the WORST place to mangle a C110.