Agree been using them for 4 years now, excellent service and great discount
It's not so much the outer sill that you need to worry about, if it's looking bad you can guarantee the the structural inner sill will be affected
This. My sills are off at min as I’m checking previous work. A rust spot In the passenger wheel well (which I didn’t attend to last time
) had spread as a thin brown seam all along where the sill joins the floor pan. The factory seam sealer on top still looked perfect. I was still finding rust but had to stop cleaning as the jack stand is in the way. Will carry on when it’s back on its wheels.
If mine required any amount of expensive work I'd scrap it. It always was a cheap car and any considerable amount (£300+) spent will seriously have to consider if it is worth it. Hopefully the rot is cosmetic only.
There's a very simple reason why Sean says what he does. The sill covers rot from the inside out. Crud gets behind the wheel liners into the ends and around behind the jacking points. It's quite rare a structural sill needs welding. But if there is any rust on the sill cover you must expect to find something on the inside. Which pretty much describes every Z3 almost on this forum.
I'm good with all that. I intend to do it myself but as I don't weld any welding required (depending on cost) will deem it a right-off.
Indeed
It has a fresh 12 months MOT anyway.
And quite right too if the car isn't of sufficient value, financial or sentimental to warrant it.
Some time ago, when dealing with wet carpets, I raised the issue that the drain tubes for the soft top exit or terminate, inside the sills. I discovered this when locating and clearing the drain tubes. I have new sill covers to go on this winter but when I do, I intend to find where the drain tubes terminate and modify in some way, to ensure the water drains to the outside rather than as currently set up. Its always been a source of utter amazement to me that so many soft top cars, not just Zs, drain their soft tops into cavities. When the time comes, I will take photos of whatever method I come up with to resolve this but would be interested to know if I am the only one to twig this? Surely not?
Have to say I wasn't aware of this.
Well it came as a surprise to me but, if you arm yourself with a length of fairly stiff electrical cable and thread it down the tube top at the front corner of the soft top, you will hear it at the bottom, inside the sill cavity. If you then put a funnel in the top of the tube and pour some water in it to check that the drain is clear, you will eventually see the water come out of the fluted edge of the sill cover where it meets the floor underneath. I repeated the experiment on the other side which did exactly the same. My car is 22 years old so I would say its lasted in spite of this questionable design but, to get more years out of the car, this probably needs to be attended to. My point is that the sill rot from the inside out is not just down to water and muck getting in from the ends but also from the hood drains too.
I could be wrong! .... BUT the outlet is on the inner side of the jacking points as I thought and I also thought it was actually sectioned off from the inner sill? Next time mine is on the ramp I'll check
Well the water that I poured into the top of the tube just seeped out of the join between the sill and the floor. I am rather dreading taking my sill covers off as the value of the car doesn't justify major surgery.