Body/Trim: Subframe Rust - MOT Failure?

[CWXC70]

There is **** welding and there is **** welding! Doesn't look like he has bothered to prep the underlying metal at all. Or he has run out of gas. 0/10 for effort there

[dingov70]

No surface prep
Poor earth for welder
wrong wire feed speed & possibly no gas
total lack of interest in the job ( most likely cause )
dirty / rusty feed wire & crud covered tip

Ask another competant welder to perform remidial repair & present original welder with the bill . If that was presented to me at MOT time , i would stop test & send it away for proper repairs to made

[Jungle_Jim]

Some opinions sought here:

If I took that to another welder would it be best to suggest they clean up that job, or cut that piece off and start again? I guess it might depend on how well the piece is attached (given that the weld is far from continuous). Also another thing to consider is that if you took the piece off I'm rather certain you'd find that he hadn't cut to rot out - I bet he just stuck the plate on top of it.

I'll visit another welder tomorrow and get an idea of price.

Thanks
John

[classicswede]

At least that should come off quickly with a couple of taps.

Get the job done right. The bumper needs to come off, cut the rot out and then weld in some new metal.

Just welding a patch over the rust is just going to make the rust problem a lot worse to deal with in a couple of years time

[hennabm]

Does he claim he can weld - cos by that evidence he clearly can't. I would expect to see a neat seam all the way round and ground down level.

That is what I'd call chicken s**t welding.

[volvo always]

It's a mess!!

My Sister had her car welded by a local garage and it was dreadful. I had a Volvo specialist weld my outriggers on my Volvo 240 and so much, much better.

I would find someone else and start again.

James

[Derek UK]

GLThor did give you details of a welder, maybe that one is worth asking. Assuming that he isn't the one you've used........

[Porkchop]

Originally Posted by dingov70

No surface prep
Poor earth for welder
wrong wire feed speed & possibly no gas
total lack of interest in the job ( most likely cause )
dirty / rusty feed wire & crud covered tip

Ask another competant welder to perform remidial repair & present original welder with the bill . If that was presented to me at MOT time , i would stop test & send it away for proper repairs to made

Agree wholeheartedly with the above, I'm a sculptor not an industry-trained welder but anyone can be taught the basics of Mig-welding (it's obvious it's been done with Mig because of the sheer number of wire tags left behind) within 1/2 an hour. They are a relatively docile beast and so much easier than a stick-welder or Tig. The one thing Migs particularly hate is inadequate surface prep and if he hasn't been arsed to grind back the affected area to bare metal free of all paint/rust/underbody damping then it's virtually impossible to establish a consistent arc. I'm genuinely shocked!! And yes, cut that abomination away and start again (and I'll lay London to a brick if he has done any clean-up of the underlying rust etc it exposes).

[Jungle_Jim]

Hi all
Thanks a lot for your responses and feedback about this.

I got the welder to grind the welds down and do more work on it. The results are much better but hardly 1st class. Obviously I will never use him again.

The welds as they are have just passed an MOT, but unfortunately I've got a few other problems which didn't pass the MOT about to burn a hole in my wallet, so I'll be constrained by money as to what I do about this. I'll closely monitor those welds over the next months and make a decision about them when I've got enough money to do something about it.

Thanks again,
John