Structural damage to n/s pillar discovered 1year after buying. SHOCKING..PICS
 

Hi all .. im in urgent need of profesional advise .. (pics below)

A little over a year ago i bought a impreza from a fairly well known garage up north that i have seen talked about on SN from time to time.. when i bought the car it was advertised as a non runner ( head gasket ) this was not a problem as i had another lump that i was planning to put in when i had finished building it ..
The car had a few other minor probs like a rip in the driver seat when i first got it but nothin really to concern me to much as the car is my first project and was really buying it to work on .. although after a year of having her lots more probs have come to light ! including electrics , a cracked alloy to name a few

As the engine is almost ready to go in, and due to the excellent weather recently i thought i would look at 2 very minor rust marks on the n/s pillar, they was approx 7cm apart about as thick as a pencil line and between 10mm to 12mm in lenght, as i said b4 the car was covered and i was always checking to make sure it did not get any worse..

I have never driven the car apart from when it came off the trailer and brought it into my drive .. I can prove this.. as i have another car which i drive daily, also i also have pics of the work with dates .. and the car has been sorn since i had her....

And Finally ...

So last week wed/thurs i decided to sand down the area, after 20 min i realise im actually sanding filler as it was starting to come loose so i get a very small chisle and lifted the lump of filler out in one go and this is what i found .. ( if ur screamish u may wanna close ur eyes )
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http://i905.photobucket.com/albums/a...z/new132-1.jpg
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http://i905.photobucket.com/albums/a...z/new133-1.jpg
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http://i905.photobucket.com/albums/a...z/new129-1.jpg

so then i decide to remove the internal plastics to the pillar
and find this
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http://i905.photobucket.com/albums/a...z/new161-1.jpg

as you can see it is horrific ! :cry:

Before i bought the car i did do a car check and it came back clean .
the garage told me the car was fine apart from the engine and seat :cuckoo:!

finally if anyone can help me that would be great im not a expert by any strech but im compleatly out of my depth on this 1 . im guessing at some point someone has lost control of her and put her in to a post ..

could someone please tell me what the F*** has happened .. is it just a real bad dent (i doubt ) or more realisticly a weld ... also would this make the car a write off & The internal side of the pillar is just a mess like its been beaten all the way down just to get some sort of shape back, hopfully u can see in the pic above.

If i get a report ive been recomended a company but they want £200 just to tell me the score .. and they may tell me its fixable in which case i will bascily loose £200 ..

HELP !! :mad:

Alright mate,it seems that at some point the car has had a bad impact around the screen area and ripped a hole in the outer skin when it bent inwards which has been welded back together.
The marks on the inside are from who ever done the repair beating the pillar back into a position to except the screen as glass doesn't flex the window apeture needs to be the right shape for it to fit right on the inner lip.

hi mate ...

would agree the car has def had a bad impact thats for sure .. there are black marks on the internal part of the pillar i think it must be from the heat of the welding done on the outta pillar ....
what i really need to no is if is the car structuraly dangerious and classed as a right off .. im guessing, but id say it must be .. but need to be sure b4 i start writing letters to the company that sold the car to me ... if u happen to no anyone that could look at the pics and be able to say that would be great

It would not bother me, plenty of new cars get this sort of repair ALL the time

Looks to have a second hand roof fitted. I take it the bottom pic is the center pillar?

hi mate ..

the bottom pic is the front passenger pillar between the windscreen and the front passager door ... to me it just looks a mess ! i mean surly if it took even a small impact it looks like it would just crumple :(

ermm .. not really sure what to say to that ..:wonder:

maybe thats the case but im sure if it was done to a high standard it would look nothing like this !

surely if YOU went to buy a shell to work on u would be less than impressed if u found that with out noing about it ... i mean if i wanted a crash damaged car i would have asked for 1.. i wanted a decent shell instead ive got a what looks like a compleat mess . :(

^ Yeah I'd be pissed too ! where did you find this gem :(

Tbh there are no words to describe what i felt when i discovered this last week ! ..:mad:

as for the company that sold it to me i have seen them metioned on here a few times i guess if people are from there particular neck of the woods / surrounding areas they will no them... but for the time been i prob shouldnt disclose who they are as i need to try resolve the issuse with them directly via writting ... which i WILL be doing tonight !

hopfully i will get a decent responce from them if not i will be makin people aware of what i have been sold, and im sure that will not be good for business.. ...

they also done the MOT a month or so b4 i bought it ... just seems abit funny ?

Not taking sides bud........but why is it down to the garage?
They may of got the car in with the repair done and not known?
There's plenty out there that have been wrecked and rebuilt without the insurance getting involved......hence the hpi clear

I can see your pissed off bud as most would be.....personally I would re fill and send to the painters and forget about it :thumb:

Tbho mate it wouldn't leave the car structually unsafe with that repair done,furtually all quarter panel repairs are just welded across midway up the c-pillar and then filled over when it is replaced due to accident damage which to be fair is a lot more likely to get impacted and that is deemed safe so I'd just get it refilled and painted and forget about it.

Why are you so sure the seller was aware of this item.

It was hardly visible without x ray equipment.

Its a crappy repair but not the end of the world, It can be rectified pretty straight forward IMHO.

I would be more concerned about other damage you havnt found yet........

as others have said the garage might not have know about this repair it has taken a year for it to show through for you, its a bad repair yes but can easily be rectified and the pillar will be structually safe if done properly, if i was you i would start looking at the oposite pillers to check that it hasnt had a roof job take the inner plastics off to check :), the car could have been repaired privatly before and the garage you brougfht it from would have no way of knowing without stripping the car and doing a shell inspection and i know no garage that does that.

Hard to tell from the pics but the inside of the pillar looks ok just abit scorched from the welding on the outside so its had a new outer skin to the pillar.Strange place for it to be though.I would be looking under the arch liner to make sure the "bones" of the car are ok.Its standard practice to replace the outer pannels on any age of car provideing its economical to do so and does not realy affect the strength of the car if done correctly.Typicaly though if that section needed to be replaced i would say the best place to join would be about half way above the front door.

What sweden said.....
Could have had a roll and the owner had it bodged on the cheap.....

hi mate..

personally i think its down to the garage because 1 the amount i paid for the car dose no where near refelect the true value of it now with what has come to light + the amount of time and money needed to get it to a resonable standard is not cost affective ... also i have just removed the skirting below the door which was hiding more damage / rust which could not be seen .. and is in a real bad way to the point where it is so bad i think it would need part of it replacing ... i dont even no if this is posible to replace part of the sil below door underneath??
i could rattle of a list of of atleast 10-15 things wrong with the car that was not disclosed to me prior to purchesing excluding the engine that i new about ...
But i just went on the companys house website to see if the company is as ligitimate as they seem and according to them the motor company i purchesed from now gone into liquidation a few months back !!
:mad:

its an old car, just clean up the rust and fill it up again, its been good soo far

To be honest i dont no that the garage did no about it .. but the fact they sell , sevice , and mot cars should mean they are able to see potenial problems ... more problems have now come to light with the car in the area of impact on the underside of the sill in line with the pillar damage ... except this time is was covered by skirting this time the rust has almost compleatly eated through the sill an area approx 7cm x4cm ... .. i no i bought a car to restore back to its best but i can say i was no where near expecting the amount of problems ive had .. :(

found it now thought !! rust and lots of it on under side of sill inline with impact covered by the skirt..

anyways dosent mater just found out the company has gone in to liquidation .. so im screwed either way ..

Unless the company you bought it off doen the repair (hard to prove anyway) then what would you expect them to do? They would have bought/traded in the car and HPI'd it (showing clear). They may well have known nothing about the damage.

The rust was visable on the external pillar when i got the car but was so minor i decided to leave till i had finished the engine now ive finnished the engine and because of the good weather i decided to take a look at it and that was what i found .. now more probs have come to light..

I removed the other internal plastic to the pillar on o/s and that is pristene.. ! ... so i dont think it has had a roof job also the car has a sunroof i doubt they would have gone to the time and effort ..lol

in my short time of owning performance cars ive realised there is alot more of a chance that the car may have been in some sort of accident during its life time, im no profesional buy a long shot just some1 keen to learn as i go along.
when i buy another the checks will be alot more intence and i have a idea of what to look out for now.
these muppets had apparently been running for over half a century this included the trading , servicing & mot's of performance cars
so im sure with the amount clues that were there and the amount of experience between every1 that worked for the company in my opinion they new the car had been damaged in 1 way or another, maybe they didnt no the full extent of the damage ..... bottom line,, there was clues that i can now see if i saw again, if there staff are as competant as me at mechanics and spoting this kind damage then its no supprise they have gone in to liquidation recently !

just wanted to say thanks to every1 who took time out to comment on this ...
after takin 4 hours to type a letter to the company i bought the car from, detailing approx 10-15 probs not disclosed when i bought the car.
I wanted the letter addressed personally to the MD or as high as i could get so i went to a site called companys house which give u that sort of info, when i found the company on the site it stated that the company has recently gone into liquidation :cry:

so since this came to light yesterday i have been thinking long and hard about my next move, I think ive decided to break the scoob although im not sure what to get next .. i mean i have so many perfomace parts i could use on another prefacelift loads of the stuff i bought for this car have not even been used yet ... such as cdf lightweight pullys (4set) apexi pfc , harvey smith ported & wrapped headers ( fitted to engine but neva started ) not to say the £400 on the vredsteins tyres that have moved less than a inch they are still brand new + loads more.

either way ive decided im not going to keep the car due to noing what its been through and the amount it would cost to get her to the standard of where i would want her :(

so time to stip her to her bones i doubt i will be able to sell a crash damaged shell but if any of u no any1 that might be intrested just drop us a pm ..

:cry: