anyone good with bondo?
 

Got some rust on the bottom of my quarter panel on the driver side reaching into the door i wana get fixed before ass and im located an hour north of milwaukee wi let me no your pric

Pics please.

U want to fill with bondo? Or are u talking about patch panels

Either one works

Il put up some pics tomarrow when i get off work or try tonight when i get off

one way is a hack job and will look like crap and not last. The other is more of the correct way and will look better and last.

I recommend at least patch panel. cut it, fit it, weld it, and then bondo to smooth it and then paint.

Well i am not great with bondo and i do not have a welder lol and funny thing is your from joliet? I was watchin american pickers and they were there and so i seen a lil bit of your town ha

Try looking on craigslist for someone that is... there's people that post ads there all the time advertising work that they do.

Couldn't hurt to try.

True... thanks for that il check it out

Trust me, you don't want to do it that way. It isn't what body filler is for and I only do this kind of work if I'm forced to. At my last job my manager would ask customers who wanted this done "would you be upset if the rust came back within a month?" 9 times out of 10 the customer would say they would be. Well.. when you tap and fill rust like that, it WILL come back quickly because the problem has only been covered up, not fixed. We almost never do this kind of work even for the people who say they wouldn't care. Shops that do this get a reputation for doing crap work. And rightfully so.

I remember awhile ago I had to paint one of these tap and fill rust jobs. The body technician did the filler work and primed it. There was no rush on the job so the car sat for 4 or 5 days before I got to painting it and by that time there were already small spots where the rust was pushing out the filler. If its doing that in under a week, imagine what it will look like in 6 months.

Do it if you want to, but know what you're getting into and don't expect much from the repair :(

k, im going to be "that guy"... as it has been said so many times on here before, a lot of us do not have $1000+ to spend on quality repairs to these cars, that are not worth much more than that... I bought my car for a bottle of tequila, and it looked like swiss cheese... I cut out the rust, used gutter mesh for support and then slapped a ridiculous amount of bondo on it... that was over 2 years ago... it is still holding strong, however the rust has gone through the rest of the car... here are a couple pictures of my shitty job, but I did it myself for $50 and it has lasted...




the last picture was taken last fall when I put the wheels on it... 2 years after doing the patch job posted above...
if you want to fix it cheaply, go for it... take the flack that will be blasted to you on here, and know it is not right, but mine is proof it can work, look like shit, but last for a while... this car was daily driven in all weather as well...
good luck with your decision :)

I guess it depends what your looking to get. To me, if you can see the repair from 10 feet back like that, then it should never have been done at all. Why bother if you can still see it? I'm glad you're happy with it though, in the end thats what matters.

I never said I was happy with it... it was a matter of needing a car to drive, and what I could afford... the body was in no was going to pass inspection with visible holes, so they got patched... now if it was my other alero, then it will hopefully be going to a professional before it gets to that point... im just saying, a cheap fix can last, and is what most younger alero owners can afford...

Ahh I see, luckily we don't have inspections by me.

How much would you charge for somthing like that? It was on the passanger side to but i sanded it before the truck bed liner/rust protection went on it with a few clear coats

Sorry, like I said I only do it if I'm forced to. Like a 'do it or you loose your job' kind of thing. I really wouldn't be comfortable doing for someone. Anyways side jobs aren't allowed in my shop and I don't own a compressor so I can't do it at home.

Dam lol

whatever path you take, make sure the rust is all-the-way gone before sealing it up with bondo. grind/cut off the rusty metal, fit in new patches of metal (be it sheet or mesh...mesh is more pliable for shape if it's a curvy part of the car), and then apply the bondo, and make sure to DA sand the area smooth before you paint, and wetsand the primer before you apply your color...maybe even superfine wetsanding between coats of color and clear coat... depending on the quality you want.

Albino I right, if you do it then ALL of the rust needs to be cut out or at the very least neutralized somehow. If you dont then it will come back with a vengeance. To make it worse, the rust on the inside of the quarter panel where you can't see it bound to be a few inches higher than the rust that you can see. So you'd likely have to cut 2" or so higher that you'd expect. Sometimes its worse than that, I've taken quarter panels off cars that looked fine or barely rusty only to find out there was a bunch of rust on the inside. You never know until you get in there.

Would a passanger window from a 2 door grand am gt work on my 2door alero?