1 hour ago, WinWiz said:

Check for rust in structure before replacing wings!

24 minutes ago, Eric Bloodaxe said:

I've replaced wings on a couple of older Fords in the past. In both cases removing the old wings revealed a whole can of (tin)worms requiring much welding.

I am hoping that the rust is only on the fender / wing, as the rest of the car is in pretty good condition (from the parts I can see at least!)

Interesting video here shows places where rust might lurk, especially on a body kitted car:

Just as an update. Had Halfords do a 10 point check on the car and review the panel and they have said that they would pass it, however it will be down to the tester on the day. I think I’ll just shove it through a not and if it does fail then I’ll just then look to replace it, as get 10 working days to retest it.

Must add though, not sure how much I believe them. they flagged 2 chips on the windscreen as a potential issue, which I have already fixed and they have also been on there for the last 6 MOTs from this particular garage. Who knows what the outcome will be. My bet is headlight alignment 😂

5 minutes ago, Laminator93 said:

Must add though, not sure how much I believe them. they flagged 2 chips on the windscreen as a potential issue, which I have already fixed and they have also been on there for the last 6 MOTs from this particular garage. Who knows what the outcome will be. My bet is headlight alignment 😂

I was expecting them to flog you a big sticker to put over the rust. 😁

50 minutes ago, Eric Bloodaxe said:

Interesting video here shows places where rust might lurk, especially on a body kitted car:

The video is interesting for sure. However, that is a German car and therefore not entirely representative.

The German authorities use an enormous amount of road salt during winter. Apart from the enormous amount they also use a highly aggressive type of road salt. While most roads are perfectly clean in winter, it also has a major downside. It causes severe corrosion on vehicles that are not regularly cleaned. Especially suspension parts which usually have little corrosion protection do often show severe corrosion within a short period.

A somewhat older German car can usually be identified by the condition of the undercarriage.

I don't know how aggressive UK road salt is but a lot of cars end up looking that over here too. People don't wash cheap, old cars throughout winter, and they generally just bucket wash through summer, missing all of the suspension and underside. They don't realise how much care it takes to keep cars on the road from about 10+ years old. There's a general idea of 'run it into the ground on a shoestring' but that just doesn't work in my experience.

Germany stretch from Switzerland to Denmark. Cars from southern Germany don't rust like cars from Denmark.

With the climate in England I assume your cars rust like cars in Denmark. If you don't spray the roads with salt whenever the forecast predict temps bellow +3C your cars might fare better.

I don't know how strict your mot is but in Denmark the mot place gets flagged if they don't fail 15-20%. So any car with visible rust like that will encourage the mot tech to thoroughly use his nasty little pointy hammer.

If my car was like that I would find a garage that also does mot inspections and ask them to make the car ready for mot -and then let them do the mot.

31 minutes ago, TomsFocus said:

I was expecting them to flog you a big sticker to put over the rust. 😁

Give it time. I haven’t had a the MOT yet 😂

Certainly we find heavy salt use around my area, particularly roads in the Dales and the North York Moors, where there are plenty of 25%+ gradients, and then you've got more salty issues as you get nearer the coast. (Plus a lot of it is extracted nearby anyway: https://www.yorkshire.com/staithes/news/community/yorkshires-deepest-road-salt-mine-take-a-look)

I have seen some shockers not unlike the car in the video - and others which look fine. What you dont know, as Tom says, is how they have been looked after and/or what remedial repairs may have been undertaken already.

i was a bit surprised when I first saw that German video as I'd always assumed they did roads better than us, perhaps not:

https://www.globalhighways.com/news/germanys-crumbling-roads-costing-billions