Often repairing a car yourself seems like a no brainer especially of your insurance did not cover you for a recent accident and you have this salvage projects tuck on your drive almost worthless. But time and advice should be sought to how much effort and money is required putting a salvage car back on the road, even for damage that does not look that bad.
Here is a video diary that shows how much work was required to get a GMC track salvage job back on to the road. In some ways it makes it look easy, but in other s you can get a real feel of how much work went into the salvage repair job. This makes no reference to costs and you can’t help thinking there were a lot of mates helping out, where you may not have that resource. It was also lucky that he had a large backyard to place the truck during the repairs. You cant help thinking the cost of doing this was more than buying another, but I suppose the resalable value of trucks is still quite high in certain areas of the USA.
There are real benefits of learning how to do your own DIY car body repair jobs. As the video says, it will save you money than paying someone one else to do it, your car will look better and it hopefully will have an increased value at the point you want to trade it is. Of course although, this can be deemed as a simple job we would recommend practice first to ensure you do not make any mistakes and find yourself making your car worse than it was before you started.
Choosing and having the right tools is also very important. Something you should consider though, if you are only going to do this the once, by the time you have bought the tools to do the job, you may not have saved as much as you thought. Key issues are safety such as masks to keep dust and paint off you and electrical tools to get the job done quicker.
This video is the first on a “four parter” and goes really though the tools and preparations to do the job and a little but at the end regarding a small repair. But for the beginner their should be some useful information to get you on you way doing car body repair.
Many cars now come with tinted windows to help with sun’s glare and add a bit or privacy to the occupants of the vehicle also. Of course these windows also set the car off too, making your car look cool or better looking at least.
Being able to see where you are going is probably an important thing when driving, but you would be surprised how many people just rely on what out of their washer bottle, front back and sides. So now and again it is worth while just getting those windows clean, not just so your car looks better, but from a safety point of view also. Using the wrong types of cleaner can leave streaks or even damage your windows over time, so there is a secret to the type of cleaner you should use on your car’s windows.
Ammonia free cleaner is the secret, just spray it on and use a cloth or tissue to take the cleaning fluid off. The video tells it all, but it is not rocket science, just make sure you use ammonia free window cleaner.
Keeping your car on the road is key to everyone and one of the main topics of our blog. But from time to time things go wrong even if you look after your vehicle well. In fact, most breakdown cover call out are for silly little things like a flat tyres, or leaving your keys ion the car or even running out of fuel. IN the USA we have partnerships throughout the states or a network of recovery trucks that will attend a stricken vehicle sometimes part of a warranty agreement.
In the UK however, they is a term called breakdown cover, which is not known outside of the UK and describes the umbrella term for basic cover, normally known as roadside assistance to breakdown recovery, which will transport your car to a place of repair. Our job is not to explain all this, but to point you where you can learn more. We have come across a new site call breakdown cover today, which although a new site will explain everything you need to know about breakdown cover, not at once of course but over several posts.
We know that breakdown cover is marketed differently across the world and forms warranty of an insurance policy. But at the end of the day all the motorist wants, is someone to get them back on the road again, quickly and cheaply. So it is worth knowing a bit more of what it is about and you should investigate the possibilities of buying breakdown cover toady for your own protection.
I suppose there was a time in the UK where we need arm action to open the windows in our cars. And for many vehicles we still do, but in the USA that was frowned upon many years before us in the UK. The traditional track for the side windows to go up and down has now been replaced by a drive cable which is easier and quicker to replace.
Although for the UK and has no reference to any car we sell here in the UK, here is an American mechanic showing us how to remove this window drive cable, from his unrecognisable Auto. (Well to us anyway). But one presumes the technology is the same over here and whether it is an Auto or a car you refer to, the job should be done in the same way.
In most salvage cases (normally not flooding)there will be some panels that need changed, the cost and complexity of changing these panels is normally what dictates whether the car is repairable or not. There are different ways of buying these panes, you can try and buy them second hand through a car parts location service like CarSpareFinder, or through your local breaker’s yards, you can buy them new from an auto shop (these parts tend to by copies made abroad) or you can go to the main dealer and the buy the same quality of panel that was put on the car at new.
The decision of which route to take is normally related to the value of the car when finished, it is unlikely you will put used old cheap parts say on a new BMW, but with a cheaper or older car, you may go down the used or cheaper copy route. The next question is whether that panel bolts on or needs welding? The answer of this question normally dictates whether you do it yourself or pay and experience welder to do it for it, unless you are trained at welding of course.
You then decide on how big and where the panel is. Below is a video of a garage replacing a quarter panel, which normally needs cutting out wand welding in. This is one of the most expensive panels to replace on a salvage car and the cost and hassle to this repair should be considered carefully before buying any salvage project.
The paint is the next consideration, but that is for another 2 way automotive post.
If you want that killer shine on your car then why not find out hot the Hot Rod workshops do it. Here you will see a buffing machine making that black look like a mirror. Easy clear advice and maybe some promotion for the Hot Rod workshop thrown in within the footage. It seems the angle and the products play a large part in making your car look the business. For some of us it is the car wash but for other who really want to se their car gleam it may be worth the watch.
If you want some honesty about how the USA are doing then watching a news channel like Al Jazeera can often tell you how it is. Here is a surprisingly balanced view of how the USA car industry looks at the moment. Obama has recently set the scene in the motor industry with the message “build fuel efficient cars”. The message is that everyone benefits, the consumer benefits form less fuel costs, the country benefits from less money going overseas to buy fuel.
However this still will add an average of $1300 to the purchase price of a new car at a time where currently new car sales are at there lowest for generations. Manufacturers like Dodge are filling for bankruptcy that is affecting the local dealer that has to try and shift vehicles no one wants to buy from a closed car manufacturer.
For those who can hold on there has to be a silver lining. There is only a certain period that the USA can regurgitate used cars and at some point new cars have to be added to the system. As usual this will probably happen in an aggressive style, but when this upturn will occur nobody knows. Europe has stated scrappage scheme where they reward the consumer for scrapping an old car and buying a new one, by up to £2000. There is no word that the USA is considering the same, with a decline in USA model sales anyway prior to the recession as Japanese and German manufacturers lead the way in fuel economy development.
Have you ever had problems starting your car after a bit of rain or low battery? Well here is an example of how to start a car that has been 6 feet under for the last 6 years. This is no joke the car comes with spider’s webs and probably many other live things that have lived under the bonnet through rain and shine for 6 years.
This is no joke, it is a real attempt to get the Subaru working and my god he does it, without stripping the engine down and a rebuild. Not sure I would want to drive it though after it fired up. Not really about keeping your car on the road, but an example of how well certain cars are made.
There are just some things that the USA do better than here in the UK. Take buying used car parts for example. Yes there are larger used car breakers in the UK who use a database to tell a customer on the phone what is in stock and the part condition and a nationwide database called Pinnacle (not sure of the correct spelling), but majority of car breakers throughout the UK, just remember what they have in stock and only sell to their own customers.
With greater distances to travel to breaker yards in the USA , you find that many more transactions are done over the phone, or certainly the location of the parts in question. As you enter many USA breaker yards you see telesales guys on the counter describing the parts in question and delivering prices through headsets. In front of them is a national or certainly a state wide database of car parts waiting to be bought, not just by the consumer bit the breaker yard as a middleman.
This means that many breaker yards sell stock that is in fact at another yard. They just ring this yard up and ask them to deliver the part to the relevant consumer. Both yards make a profit on the part sold and so long as the breaker yard who has the car part in stock gets the cash asked, he does not care how much has been added on by the second breaker.
Although the technology for this sharing of stock database is in place, many refuse to take the time to add stock to the database or remove it should they sell out. The USA breakers do this much better and understand the benefits better than here in the UK.
For the consumer they may find themselves paying a bit more for the part as there are now 2 margins added to the price, but when they consider time and gas saved by driving around or ringing around, this can be cost effective in the long run.
As the bigger yards get bigger and the small yard struggle to survive within the UK, it would make sense to become a collective force to the big guys, but their still seems to be a reluctance to do this.