Inspection of a Bodyshop "Restoration" of a Classic Mini - Poor Quality or Expectations Too High ??
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- Опубликовано: 2 окт 2024
- Here we have the unfortunate discovery of some issues following a car being delivered to us for Mechsnicsl works following on from a Restoration Completed at a customers chosen -"Bodyshop"
So we thought we would take the opportunity to point out some of the issues and pitfalls of approaching a Bodyshop for resto work, not Restoration Shop, yes there's a difference and No, not all Bodyshops are the same !!
Take a look and let us know your thoughts. #classicmini #minidiy #mini #classicminirestoration #garage #engine #classicminilife #mechanic #bodyshop
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It depends entirely on what it cost. For £5000 it's a good job, for £10,000, it isn't. It's a standard bodyshop job that as opposed to a specialist. I did my apprenticeship at a BL garage in the mid eighties and the build quality of Minis was absolutely shocking straight from Longbridge. Just rubbish.
In defence of whoever did this, they've done things like fit the reinforcing plates where the wings meet the front panel and A panels plus plenty of seam sealer.
35 years ago I worked at Mini Machine when they did restorations, and they were rightly considered to be the best in the business. Just faultless and better than new. This blue one is a pearl compared to some of the horror shows we saw from other 'restorers'.
Imo, only one bodyshop out of ten can produce what I'd call a proper job. Most just want to do insurance repairs for a quick buck.
At the end of the day it depends on the budget your customer gave them to work with.
I used to sell these Minis when they were new alongside other BL, Austin Rover & Rover vehicles. I still drive one of the very last Rover 75 Tourers & will very soon have to decide to either get some work done to her or move the old girl on. Biggest problem is finding garage's one can trust to do it right 1st time
We hear this a lot, and get slightly confused by it, it has nothing to do with the budget the customer has, the work needed is the work needed and the cost of it is the cost of it, if the budget isn't there to do the work fully and correctly it doesn't get done, standards don't lower to fit the budget, we'll certainly not in our workshops. Do it once and do it right.
all valid points , but ,,,, you dont know what the customer actually agreed to , the whole job may have been done down to a tight budget rather than up to a high standard , maybe this is an exceptional job for the price paid ,,, there are two sides to every story.
We hear this a lot, however, we would never work down to a budget, and certainly wouldn't lower our standards to meet such a budget, better would be do it over a longer timeframe to achieve a better result.
@@thomasclassicandmodern but you didnt do the job , and you were not paying for the job so its really a moot point as to what you would do ,,,, I hear the '' we dont work that way '' a lot too , but the customer while not always being right , is still always the customer .
Every plumber, builder, dentist even accountant I have ever used says " who did that poor work..?" about the previous ! 😂
And usually completely justified, just like this one 👍👍
The point is what did the customer pay for the work done and what would you have charged to do the work to your standards if he only paid a percentage of your price he might have got value for money . Minis rust soon after they left the factory the standard of work you are talking of far better then when it was new . As you say body shops repair cars not create show cars
Nope, again, it's nothing to do with what he paid. That's a very blinkered response, and I don't really think the value for money statement fits this in any way shape or form. Show cars are a different conversation altogether.
There’s an important lesson to bodyshop owners here. Unless you’re charging £25,000 or £50,000, NEVER help people with their classic cars!
I don't think whoever did this "helped" do you ?
All valid points, most places have no idea of the standard anymore.
Thank you 👍
It would be interesting to know the cost
Yes but in all honesty it's irrelevant as the work is still the work and should be to a "standard" regardless of cost, if you can't meet that standard, due to customers budget don't do the work. It's a tough one really.
Sadly,that is the condition of 95% of 'restored' cars for sale in the UK. Collecting Cars auction site is the place to find them.
And it's very difficult for buyers to sift out the wheat from the chaff sometimes and end up with a horror story
Such a shame, car looks like it's had a great spray job on your video, could of been a great resto. I bet you find a lot more when you start pulling it apart. We all know golden rule for restorations save everything till it's finished. Thanks for posting a great video. Cheers Marty's projects
Unfortunately as the old adage goes ‘you get what you pay for’. This would never have been passed by a reputable body shop but would probably have cost honest money to begin with 👍
Very good point. Thanks for the feedback 👍👍
This car is pretty much the norm from what I see of most classic car restos. Most people do not have the budget to do the car really properly, and the best resto shops will not take the job on unless they can be assured the budget is there to do it properly. So they go down the road to a crash repair centre and they take it on as a down time job, and you get this sort of thing. To be honest I have seen much worse. Owners also fail to understand the value of specialist knowledge. It is vital that the restorer really understands the marque and knows the correct details or cars end up looking like bitsas. I would be interested to know how much the owner was charged for this work and what he thought he was going to get at the end of it. Was he naïve?
I'm a believer in the saying that people in glasshouses shouldn't throw stones. Before you ask what I know, I've been doing this for 30 plus years, and I've never slagged off others' work. After all, nobody is perfect, and it's always easy to find faults.
I find it hard to believe that in 30 years in the business you've never seen anything such as this and felt the need to make people aware of it ??
@thomasclassicandmodern never said I've never seen it.. I said I've never slagged off somebody else's work. Karma has a way of getting you. I also said nobody is perfect if you look hard enough you'll find faults in every job. The only person who needs to be told is the customer, and that's if they ask you to look over it... they must of been happy with the job when it was done, or they wouldn't of accepted it and paid for it.
You slag the paintwork off yet say you don't do it... you just restore the car. So what's the paintwork if that's not restoring it?
Also, what was the budget of the customer? Let's say 5k would you do more work that takes more time which ultimately costs money if you don't get paid for it? Next time, please give a bit more context about the original job, if you don't have that, then stop baiting for clicks. Have a good day. Hopefully, for you, I never come across one of your "restoration " jobs.
@@thomasfarmer9055 Absolutley spot on, i've been restoring cars for 27 years and have done a lot of minis, the majority of bits hes moaning about are minor items that would be finished off/touched in and rectified as part of final prep. The main question as you have said is how much did the customer pay for the work, if they paid 100K then its not good enough, if it was 5k then they got a bargain. Its all too easy to criticise others but there is only so much money people will pay to have a car like this restored and it looks to me like its been done to a reasonable standard for what it is with some minor work required to finish it off. I would love to have a close look at something the original poster has done, I bet you could rip it to shreds very easily.
If you are charging for work it should be right , its not up to the next person to sort out you're idleness inability , name and shame
I have a 1965 mini.
I have worked in bodyshop for 30 plus years. After 5 years a few blisters popped up.
I swear those areas had zero filler on it..
Glasurit products all the way... bummer but resprays are free😂
Obviously not a restoration
We would agree 👍
Quite right to point all that bits out, that is very poor work, I’m with you on that one, do it right do it once, that’s why I spend the extra time on my minis to make sure they are right, my first mini I started restoring at 13 which was my first car is in better condition that that, I’m sure you will do your best to put it right or as best as possible without to much work 👍
Do it once do it right is a great ethos to follow 👍👍
It's a sad state of affairs. It's obvious to me that they have just done as quick a job as possible and no doubt only really care about making as much profit as possible. The fact that they couldn't even be bothered to clean up all the filler dust before handing the car back speaks volumes! I can imagine how good the welding is underneath all the filler and seam sealer. Shame
Agreed, but let's hope we can rescue it without too much issue
They have definitely had this guys pants down, very poor workmanship back street garage comes to mind!
It would appear so I'm afraid
Good job Sir
Blimey Ross, you've got your work cut out there, in general, bodyshops do not restore cars, the bodyshop that I work at certainly wouldn't restore a car, to be honest you are totally correct about the state of that "restoration " they should have contacted you in the 1st place to carry out that work, when you did the close up of the car on the ramp with the paint, it had a bad orange peel finish, I noticed that mainly because that's what I do for a job, paint correction, our bodyshop is officially authorised to repair jaguar/land rover vehicles and the VAG group so the paint has to be spot on......which is what my job entails, I can see you ending up having to do a fair bit of paintwork on that car, good luck with the job, it'll be the way that it should be when you've finished with it.
Indeed
WTF has it been painted **BEFORE** the body / mechanicals were restored / repaired?!!?!?!?!? Sorry but owner needs to wake up first
Yes it has, bit of a strange way around to do things, but I'm led to believe the Bodyshop initially were going to do it all then they changed plans towards the end.
To be honest I think you were, if anything less critical about the quality of work than I would have been. Everything you pointed out was justified and it shows your standards are high. It is a shame the owner didn't get the work checked before paying the bill.
Thanks for the comment. I'll be honest there were many more choice words used on the initial inspection !! It is such a shame but we have a plan to rescue it 👍👍
as a mini owner id be horrified if that was a resto on my car if i paid for it
If I was the customer I would be completely gutted at this "restoration"...clearly wanting restore the car to new...and I would be so disappointed....with a Mini...you see so many "restored" and I don't trust any of them...unless they have 100s of photos showing the process. So easy to fix and fill and paint...but it will come back to haunt him quite soon. My first mini was a beautifully painted "restored" 1977 1100...my pride and joy until within a year the filler all cracked and fell off in chunks and I found toilet paper shoved into the holes to create a base for the filler. 😮😢 thanks for a fantastic video and sharing this with us...I certainly learnt a lot!🙌🏼
Thanks for the feedback. All our restos are photo heavy for this reason. 👍👍
Bodgitt and Scarper...finest Rest or Ration....
Indeed
Everyone's Mum does a Sunday Roast slightly differently .
You have to specify what YOU want from the outset , in writing , that way if something isn't done ("of merchantable quality" ) ,
then it goes back till it IS done, and done properly .Verbal agreements are worth nothing after the event.Too much wriggle room . Too much money at stake . Too much stress for all parties .
Find out about the firm doing the work well in advance . Look around - nothing beats word of mouth . See their work .
Bottom line : this is a Business Transaction . No sentiment ...
My verdict ( for what it's worth ) on the above job : Slap dash / insufficient time / care / pride taken in the finished product .
Did nobody inspect it before hand-over, even briefly ? ?
I guess this is the difficulty, some owners don't have the full skill set to be able to say what is needed, that's up to the repairers "expertise", we always work to a full written plan / outline of work, and usually it only ever increases as you get into it.
Hi, I started my apprenticeship in 1973 as a Panel Beater I had my own bodyshop for 5 years until the financial crash late 80s also owned a smart repair company with 6 partners then from 2011 till retiring in 2019 so I think I'm qualified to comment, bodyshop and restoration are two completely different operations, in my opinion your comments are completely justifiable, it was not a thing I did to find fault with other people's work but this mini is poor, poor paintwork little attention to detail when you look at the work involved the final finish is terrible, the amount of work to rectify this mini is immense. You lads who restore are a different breed to crash repair lads. In the 80s and 90s I worked on a lot of minis all the points you shown especially the front wing joints need to be crisp or they look terrible, good luck putting it right and you were correct to make the owner aware.
Very poor workmanship 🤬
Yeah that's shocking mate I restored my mini around seven years ago it was the first car iv ever done did everything myself including bodywork and paint and it still looks like a brand new mini iv allways thought that you can be a great mechanic and a great panel beater painter but if you dont have the eye to know when something looks right then you are going to struggle to do good work
Very true. We say it often, these little cars are not hard to work on but they're easy to get wrong.👍
For a completed restoration, I would be really disappointed if this is what I was presented with - everything about it says lack of attention to detail. The missing protection in those hidden areas especially means that it would start to corrode the minute it was back on the road ☹
Exactly correct. But we have a plan to rescue it as best as we can 👍
Just like they did originally…..😂
Good job not cheap😒😒😒😒😒😒😒😒😒😒Cheap job not good😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍just a Chinese saying
Not a saying......more of a fact ha ha
Agree 100%
Thank you 👍
I've worked in truck, car and bike restoration, and race build shops. This kind of stuff happens all the time..Yes there is a big difference between a body shop that's pushing high volume insurance jobs out ever day, and a restoration / race shop that might manage 1 or 2 vehicles a month, with customers that have near limitless budgets.
You inevitably work with a customer that don't have much idea about what's achievable for the budget they have to work with. Wires get crossed and everybody falls out. A pro shop that's been building it's name for years gets trashed by a bunch of key board warriors, that don't have any idea what the original brief actually was. Or if there was some kind of misinterpretation between the 2 parties
First up, what was the customers brief to the body shop.... Did they say, they want it all mint, never mind the cost; and it has to win at all the shows, if so then there is a problem. If they said they'd like it nice, here's the max price, then the body shop did a good job.
There's probably another 20 hours work in getting everything sorted out, if it was done pre prep in the body shop. The boot floor's another issue. as is the door. However there was probably one guy doing the main body in one area and another doing the removable part somewhere else. Chances are they were never married up and checked before they were all painted. But that's how body shops that work on insurance jobs operate. Decals on the side ???? fitment of arches...again, what was the brief.
As for cleaning under the bonnet /engine bay, if the customer mentioned to the body shop it was going on to another shop for mechanical resto, they probably thought there's no point charging another hour or so to do work that 'll just get re done.
I could go on, but you probably get the idea.
If you want a restoration, go to a restoration shop and explain what you want..... If you dent your new Ford go to a body shop...
Your closing comment sums it up perfectly 👍👍
Minis are particularly notorious for being badly restored and botched by chancers.
Apparently it's still very prevalent ! Such a shame, but we will rescue it. 👍
And faked and cloned. I don't believe anything anyone tells me anymore about the "history" of their "mostly original" MK1 1275S. Ex works this, Ex Downton that, what a load of BS! And then there is Greg Hales!!!!! The Mini world is full of con artists and fantasists.
Sadly, this is not unusual her in Norway as well. I`m into restoring Escort Mk2`s, and has seen this before. On a RS2000 I had to rebuild the complete front end, exept the chassisrails. From the bulkhead and rearwards, I discussed with the customer, and we desided to keep it as it was done there.
Oh dear, seems it's more commonplace than thought then 👍
A dog with a new coat.
Indeed
Thanks for the run through Ross. Your comment about not getting restoration work done by a body shop has totally landed with me, it makes perfect sense to me now you’ve explained that. I know where I’ll be coming when I need my mini restoration work done. I appreciate your eye for detail and a desire for a job done well.
Thank you very much for the comment and for watching. We will gladly help if we can 👍 and If our shall videos bring some awareness then I'd say the channel is a success. Thank you 👍
Shouldnt get involved with rectifying other peoples work as anything u do on that car becomes yours now opening a tin of worms
Not at all, we will always try and help people out if we can. And anything we do is clearly documented.
ok this job mite have been a quick cheap job not a restoration job now look at the job how much would you charge for this work and how much did they pay but i take it your not cheap
Hard to say as we can't quote from the original state of the car. But regardless of a it being quick cheap job the extent of the work tells otherwise. And again it's the standards issue: as for me being cheap. Cheap ain't good, good ain't cheap
sounds like a newport accent..greetings from barry island
Oh my days, is it that obvious 🤣🤣 hope the weathers good in Gavin n Stacey land
Had some work done by Ross on my Rover Mini MPI a few years ago - top job and reasonable prices.
Many thanks for the comment. Hope you are keeping well and missing the mini 🤣👍
@@thomasclassicandmodern Cheers Ross - enjoyed my Mini, but ticked off a couple of other cars from my list since 🙂
appalling paint job and all the other work I've seen DIY job 100 times better than that
Unfortunately that is very much the case.
That’s a total Bodge job
Unfortunately so 👍
is that a japan import
Nope, British car this one 👍
Alright if you're a millionaire
I don't think wether you have money or not that this is acceptable really,
@@thomasclassicandmodern you'd hate to see my budget mk1 escort build. I don't take it to events because snobby people scoff at it, I just take it out for a thrash in the forest when I feel like it, beats hearing people complain "you should get it painted" when I say I don't have a spare $10,000 lying around they act surprised.
Name and Shame
I'm afraid we don't know that info yet.
Stevie Wonder
That is absolutely shocking. This 'restoration specialist' should be named and shamed to prevent others from falling into the same trap.
I'm sure when we have "rescued" it and it's resolved we will be able to.