The car I shouldn't have bought (but like anyway)

[jamess]

I bought a new (to me, it's 4.5 years old) car last saturday. When I went to look at it, I said that as long as they changed the cambelt and tensioners, then I was happy to do a deal. As the cambelt change is a long job, as it's a big engine in a small car. (Clio Sport 172) Anyway, I picked the car up from them, and there was a reciept from the cambelt change, and it works out approx. ?200 for the job, as there were a few other little things done as well. Anyway, I phoned the garage that had done the work, as I thought that ?200 was a little cheap, as Renault charge about ?650 for it, and I find out that they have only changed the belt, and not the tensioners!! Now, they need changing the same time as the belt, no question. So basically, I have to get a new cambelt fitted, along with the tensioners, and also, I believe that an pulley bearing is on it's way out also. I have contacted a Renault specialist, who deals with the Sports everyday, and he's getting back to me with a quote, but I think it's going to be in the region of ?400. Has the car dealer that sold me this car any responsibility with this, or am I on my own? I don't want to send it back to them, to have them do it at the same garage, as basically, when I spoke to them, they didn't seem to know much about cars, which worried me. Can I have it done at the place I am getting the quote, and have them compensate me fully, or even partially?! Or not. The car came with a 2 year warranty, but this is not covered by the warranty, as nothing has broken (yet!). If anyone has any advice I would be grateful. If I have to pay for it all myself, then I will, it's just I feel a little 'cheated' really.

[FunElan]

Beautiful stuff! Glad to see this is moving along. I have the same apple sticker in the same spot on my car! It was there when I bought it however.

[Guest Anonymous]

Update.. pictures later...

Now this is what happens when all of a sudden you have to contend with a toddler in day care, a wife that went back to work, and more work for yourself... NO MORE TIME to do anything to the car, so..... you farm out !!

OUCH, but it needed to be done.

- totally rebuilt Differential (complicated by the fact my car was a mongrel of 2002 and 318 parts and 5 speed) - no more shhhhhh

- New steering box - mine was scary

- Repairs to header/muffler - no more tick tick tick

- new fuel lines all over to kill the gas smell - no more passing out

- Entire new front end: All the parts checked out, cleaned up, new bushings *everywhere*, ball joints, etc...

Align it all - twice, fix little stuff like the horn while you're there... $2100 ! Yes, I know most folks here can buy 4x 2002s for that price, but I did not have the time or skill to do all that labor, especially the diff ! ($1000 labor, $1000 parts, seals, bushings, you name it), the rest is tax !

It should drive like a dream. It better ! If not, I'll go take along drive off a short pier ! Why am I even posting this ? To redress the balance of the force ;-) Not all 2002s are $500 cars... I'm easily up to 14-15K already, I've done a LOT myself, and it's not even a Tii. Call me crazy !

[craaaazzy]

good work! i wish i had skills to do body work...or a friend...

100rwhp? wow. must have been a pretty strong motor but the previous owner never knew it since the lack of secondary usage. wonder how much of the hp came from the fuel injection upgrade (need to do some research now).

[deschodt]

Aaaaand she's back !

This time with a repaired strut assembly and new steering box components. And she finally drives straight !!! YES !

[deschodt]

Time to pick up the blog…

In our last episode, which I apparently forgot to document here, we sourced a new hood from "the land where rust is dead", aka California, and painted it to match *one* of my car's 3 shades of Inka. ;-)

Some of the trim clips had turned into amorphous globs of rust, and new ones had to be sourced to secure the trim. Still, she looked Aw'right !

(note to self: never trust digital pictures - you can't even tell the left side trim is falling off, but it is attached only by the bumper guard at this point)

Except my bumpers looked like crap. The trim was falling off in places, the inside was rusting, the rubber was trying to run for it… Yeah, this is the rear bumper, but I forgot to take pictures of the front, which was worse if you can believe it.

Ugh ! Pitting, rust stains, saggy rubber…

So I called the fantastic Mr Blunt, but that led to more questions than answers because BMW uses 37.5 different kind of clips for its bumpers (OK, 2) Do you have round holes or ovals ones, he asked ? Both apparently ;-) Here's a picture for future reference of my presumably 73 bumper, naked and somewhat polished already ! I also "derustified" the inside of the bumper and painted it black…

Ok, not gonna win the pulitzer with that shot, but I wanted to show you the clip that holds the trim, it has no prayer of holding onto the bumper unless you bent it thusly (left side) and then from the inside of the bumper, use a pick or something to catch the wings and pull them thru !

Another note on those clips and the bumper guards bolts… If you have a 3.5 y old, do not leave them unattended. They cost as much as if they were made of gold, yet they can just as easily get lost in the sandbox or the backyard where the aforementioned 3 year old decides to throw them… I found 75% of them, good thing I ordered too many !

Anyway: Bumper guards back on, polished chrome, rubber dressing galore, nicer !!

Ready for reattachment !

And finally the adorable little clips that hold the trim where the plastic ones could not. I never thought I'd find any use for my 5.5mm socket, but there ya go !

Those clips, washers and nuts are hard to find (thanks Steve), but easy to lose !!

A new Roundel to cap it off, nice fresh hood paint, nice Bimmer colors, nice chrome - progress..

Side note, I bought 2 clips for the roundel, but ended up reusing the plastic ones on the car, less aggravation...

A more conventional angle ;-)

Next episode, rear bumper !! Then fresh windshield trim plastic thingie, that's gonna be hard…

[deschodt]

question... Are there supposed to be bolts/clips/anything at the very tip of the bumpers, on each end, going to/thru the fenders ? No holes in my fenders, and there is a catch for a clip at the end of the bumper. As it is, you can push on each end and there is some give, and you can scratch the paint (have I ever). I'm thinking I'll rig a rubber "bumper" for the end of the bumpers ;-)

If you have an original car I'd appreciate a picture of that contraption if it exists !

[mthaynestii]

Yes, your front fenders are missing the holes for a bolt to go thru to hold the bumper ends. There is a large block of rubber that goes between the bumper and the fender, that Rogertii will sell you on eBay (I haven't asked Blunt yet, but I need some too), for like $60 for the pair, and a collection of washers and such. You can check out the order of parts on Realoem.

[deschodt]

More work on this pile of rust ;-) Actually, my mechanic offered to buy it from me if I get tired of it, so that's a good sign...

I found a little hole on the underside that turned out to be a bigger problem with the driver side floor separating from the longitudinal due to rust. So a new floor panel (Jamic) is going in. VERY nice fit by the way !

This is the car's best flinstone impersonation:

As you can see we drilled the frame rail off the existing "floor panel" if you can call that patched-non-factory-pile-of-rust a panel. The rail is very thin and has been patched itself, so we're gonna weld reinforcements too. The only good news is that the pedal box area is good !

Now, the fun bit ! The side longitudinal has been worked on in the past, not well.... The holes on the left poke thru the wheel well, and so the wheel is free to project water in there. That's hard to reach, so it's possible we're gonna have to remove the fender, meaning more paint, dammit... We'll try w/o pulling the fender but that's a tight area... If we do, we'll redrill it to accept the bumper end bolts too.... Ugh...

Like indicated on the picture, a ruler like strip of metal will be welded into the frame rail because it's getting awfully thin in there. The rest of the car appears good, the other side has a similar cause and effect issue but we caught it early enough (spot weld, shutz, done). Also a good time to restore drain holes in the side rocker that the PO welded shut...

Getting more upside down by the minute, because as of now I'm farming the work out completely. No free time, and I don't have the skills to shape metal like needed anyway. That leaves the front spoiler area that needs stripping and a seagull crap sized bubble on the roof, then I'll have the most expensive "driver quality" 2002 in the US ;-)

One of these days I'll take a 6 months sabbatical, learn to paint properly, and redo the paint top to bottom. At least it's now 95% rust free, for real ;-)

[deschodt]

Ok, so not the best pictures, in fact they look like 30 year old ones but I blame the cell phone...

The floor pan is in, the rocker/fender is done, and he had to make a strip of metal pretty much the entire length of the rocker from the fender well to the rear of the driver seat, and also fix some of it internally...

Odddly enough - not - the door closes a lot better now ;-) No sagging !

Not a pretty shot, coated in rust preventing paint... I think he could have ground the welds down a little more too... I could still do that, but it's under carpet, meh...

Also the inside of each rocker/longitudinal was shot with rust converter/inhibitor with an extra long spray nozzle, and all the drain holes reopened as appropriate.

Not especially pretty, I know, but structurally the car is a bank vault now - compared to before anyway. New carpet goes in next, and I gotta figure out that annoying console that fits funny...

[deschodt]

I've lost a post somewhere, I bet I posted outside of the thread, oops... Anyway: Tackled the passenger side, which I expected to be an easier deal, but while it is better (rocker is *not* rotten), it's pretty f#$%^@^ far from perfect either.

Tilt your head left, a litttle more... there! That's where the previously repaired passenger floor meets the transmission tunnel. I should say "met". Right now it's like a distant "hello", pretty thin and swiss-cheesy.

A few more spots here and there towards the passenger seat. No biggie (the big patches of light are just a reflection, I mean the small pinholes on the corner)

At that point, I got tired of messing around and took out the entire interior. console (I like the look without and it never fit right, odds of its return are low), carpet, F/R seats, parcel shelf (a rust area on 911s, but apparently not on this 2002).

+

Not too bad. I located one more perforation, driver side under the seat belt reel, a small 1" strip of metal will do.

I wirebrushed the entire interior where applicable, wasting 2 brushes to stumps. I spared the factory tar pads where possible on the rear floors and trunk wall by cutting out little strips of the sides where rust was, till I hit good metal. I also cored them here and there in the middle to check I wasn't being stupid leaving them in place, but no, clean metal.

Once everything was shinier and vacuumed, I applied Metal ready (phosphoric acid + zinc) to converted the rust, and I will POR 15 the area post welding.

2 things I noticed, help ? round hole under the rear seat, driver side, looks factory. Was there a rubber plug there ? Or should I plug with metal ?

Same on the pedal cluster, right of the unit there is an ovoid hole that looks like it could use a plug. Not sure I can find those.

Correction, William's post answered that... Metal plug in back, plastic in front..

I was working under the FL sun, to it affected my head and for a minute I thought of taking it apart completely, glass, headliner, doors, and painting it top to bottom. I still have an ugly repaint peeling over old paint at the hofmeister kink, and some surface rust in the roof drip rails. But common sense prevailed, I'll just make it water proof for now, because if I take it apart months before baby#2 arrives, it'll never be driven again for years ;-)

[deschodt]

Been a while... I can thank a newborn for this, and the associated lack of sleep and total absence of free time... So, what to do with a new air/watertight floor ? Cover it up !

Raamat, one layer on the floor, 2 on the tunnel.

Ensolite, one layer everywhere.

Doesn't look pretty, does it ?

Thankfully then there is carpet. Esty made me a no console version, kinda (private joke for Esty).

Prior to putting the back seats in, I also reinstalled the speakers and added the locking 3 point autoflug belts supplied by Al (bluedevils here).

Now my only dilemma is do I bother reinstalling the stock seats for a couple of weeks of wait for the Aardvark Recaros... I need time and crawling space to figure out what to do with the radio and hazard button now that I'm going console free... Got a 996 console I might cut up and hang from the dash...

In the last 2 months, I also went from this:

to that: (extension behind the hole in the wall)

so I can now work on my cars ;-)

[Koblenz]

Thanks for sharing the progress and the ( I want to close my eyes and make it all go away) rust challenges.

Your car is looking great! Big fan of the garage. I'm in the "put it back together" phase. Located in Orlando. Looks like St. Pete for you?

[deschodt]

Your car is looking great! Big fan of the garage. I'm in the "put it back together" phase. Located in Orlando. Looks like St. Pete for you?

I wish. My car is now really sound (structure and body), reliable and fun to drive with more power from EFI and the 5 speed, and it's pretty popular on the road (lots of thumbs up). But "looking great" is only something you'd say from 6 feet away or from internet pictures. It still needs a complete paint job to make the grade ;-( Got over $15K in this car and it still needs paint ??? Yessir!

Engine compartment is fugly (PO repaint over dirty old paint is peeling off), the same repaint is peeling off at the hoffmeister kink on each side, small but *I know*, and there is a quarter sized spot of surface rust smack in the middle of the roof (?) and some surface crap in the rain gutters... But I have enough time and $$$ into this already, it's water tight now and it runs great, it'll have to make do as is for a while.

Tampa... You may have gotten St Pete from the mechanic's plate, I stopped using him long ago, sometimes cheap is not the way to go.

[deschodt]

Aardvark sourced Recaros. $1300 delivered... pretty nice...

It just adds to how upside down I am with the car already, but at least now I can "drive" it and not slide around...

Word of advice there: watch your ass size ;-) Anyone >38 pants size will *probably* not fit in there (and be able to reproduce later). Anyone >36 probably won't fit all that comfortably either. Assuming waist size correlates to ass size, of course.

I can't fit in the passenger side *at all*, at least not without squeezing things I do not wish to squeeze, which was a shock as I wasn't paying attention and installed the passenger seat in the driver slot at first. Big "Oh crap" moment when I realized I spent $$$ on seats which I did not fit in... Followed by "Did I gain that much weight in the 2 weeks since I tried them and was snug, but fine?", and the realization the driver seat is much wider, having been enlarged by other fat asses before me.

Other thing to note: driving position is much higher than before, probably by an inch... Not a good thing in my book, but I'm comparing a freshly padded recaro to an old stock seat with much give... Not sure if I can fix that, there is very little room between sliders' nuts and the seat brackets.

It would take major surgery on the seat mounts. Maybe a diet will help me sink in the recaro more ;-)

On my to-do list now: mount the radio under the dash somehow, because I like the no-console look, and rig something for the hazard switch too.

That and locate a new turn signal flasher relay...Good thing my car is orange, apparently I lost turn signals recently...(come to think of it, I bet it's because I have not reconnected the hazard switch to the wiring loom yet, the circuit is probably open, Doh)