Just taken my wife's 2013 Fiesta for its MOT and was pretty confident it'd pass... but you never know what might turn up! What I certainly wasn't expecting was a hole in the outer sill which, given its location, meant a 'major' failure.

I think I had assumed structural rust was something that plagued all of my previous old cars, not this 'new' one... I suppose though that whilst the car as a whole is in good condition, at 12 years it's not all that new. I do believe it spent the first few years of its life up in Aberdeen and so probably had a few harsh winters with road salt and the sea air to contend with!

I've arranged for a welder to repair it (sent him some pictures and he said it'd be no problem). No idea of price yet but I'm not too fussed - if it needs doing it needs doing. Just thought I'd post to see if others have seen similar themselves on this model?

(Edit: I should add that I am pretty sure the tester has been poking away to reveal the true horrors underneath, which is fair enough as I do want them to be thorough in things like this, as I am sure I would've noticed it myself previously in its current state!)

Well in the good old days, some newspaper, polyfilla and a thick coat of black under seal was all that was needed. None of this fancy welding stuff 🤣

All sorted now. Took it to a welder who cut the corroded section out, welded in a new plate, smoothed the join and oversprayed the sill front-to-back with chip guard. He ground back some of the other side but said that was okay, at least for the time being, and chip guarded that side to match. He said long(er) term it might need new sills as he ran his borescope through the main hole and could see there was some corrosion along the full length. Will cross that bridge if/when we come to it!

 

It cost £200 which I thought was pretty reasonable.

Looks a tidy job. Often wondered why Ford never did that**. The Mk 7 sills always looked pretty vulnerable.

(**I suppose the usual answer - save a few pence per car😀)

Yeah he was saying what a poor design they were, and not galvanised so it's just a matter of time until they corrode. He was showing me some other cars in the yard whose sills had drain holes in and were chip-guarded at the factory but like you say it cuts costs not doing this stuff and it only really needs to last the length of the warranty as far as they're concerned.

Ive got the same on mine but I can see more rust appearing under the paint around area of the hole so I assume like yours, its rusting from behind and is along the whole sill: ((  I dont know weather to bother getting mine done or not as Im pretty sure I can see tiny bits of rust on other parts of the sill so it will probobly just end up like a wild goose chase. Id assume sanding and repainting the whole sill would cost a lot?

With mine he did say they will eventually rot out as they're corroding from the inside out. He said he would then replace the whole sill (cutting along the top and remove the spot welds along the bottom) and replace them with galvanised replacements. This'd be about £1000 in totall though for both sides so it is presumably a fair bit of work. 

Yeah I suppose its just a matter of how long you plan on keeping the car vs how long it will take for the sill to get to that point. I dont know how long I plan on keeping mine exactly but I'd assume something else will go on the car before the rust becomes a sill replacment job, although I may be wrong so I may just leave it

Yeah, pretty much my thoughts exactly!