Rocker Panel replacement
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Joined: Aug 2011
Posts: 53
From: east coast
Rocker Panel replacement
Has anyone replaced the rocker panel on their Fit? Is it worth doing? What would be a reasonable cost at bodyshop? I have a fairly low milage 2011 which just got dinged for this on state inspection.
Member
Joined: Oct 2020
Posts: 836
From: MA
Do you want to keep the car for a long time? Do you care about appearance? Did you fail the inspection?
Rust repair is generally expensive. In the best case scenario, you have a popular vehicle with replacement patch panels available. I'm not sure if this is the case for the Fit rocker panel. The shop will then cut out the old panel and weld in the new panel. More commonly, the shop has to cut out the rust and fabricate their own repair. Both of these options are followed by seam sealing, primer, paint, and clear coat.
Here's an example from a few years ago. We purchased my wife's car (Nissan Leaf) at a very good price because it had a small spot of rust starting on a rear fender lip, looked like it had never been washed and definitely not waxed, and was filthy inside. I was able to deal with with the interior and paint myself and a local shop repaired the rust. I have family in auto body so I know how the repair should go, but I'm not equipped or experienced to do it myself. I confirmed that they were going to cut out all of the rust and surrounding metal and fabricate a new fender lip followed by a repaint of the quarter panel. The cost was $1250.
If a repair is really well done, it's difficult to see that any work has been done. In this case, I could confirm that they did cut and rebuild the fender lip because they didn't do that great of a job and the curve doesn't quite match the other side. Plus, there were runs in the clear coat. Not great, but my wife didn't notice and the process had already taken several weeks so I tried to ignore it.
We live in MA so it's not great for cars. I wash both the Fit and my wife's car as often as I can, including in the middle of winter (I definitely know the joy of a hand wash on a 35 degree day), plus I've coated the undercarriage, inner fenders, etc. of both cars with PB Blaster Surface Shield. In other words, I do the best I can to keep rust away. But, almost exactly two years later the fender on my wife's car is rusting again in the repaired area. I went back to the shop with the original invoice and talked to the manager in hopes that they would help me out since it's the metal they replaced that is rusting. Nope. He said "yeah, rust... what are you going to do?" and offered to fix it for... $1250.
Back to your question. If you have a good car except for the rust, and you want to keep it long term, and you're willing to take other steps to prevent rust, and you can find a good shop that offers a guarantee on their work, it would be worth getting an estimate and thinking about repairing it. If your answer to all those questions isn't a resounding "Yes" then it's probably not worth a repair.
Rust repair is generally expensive. In the best case scenario, you have a popular vehicle with replacement patch panels available. I'm not sure if this is the case for the Fit rocker panel. The shop will then cut out the old panel and weld in the new panel. More commonly, the shop has to cut out the rust and fabricate their own repair. Both of these options are followed by seam sealing, primer, paint, and clear coat.
Here's an example from a few years ago. We purchased my wife's car (Nissan Leaf) at a very good price because it had a small spot of rust starting on a rear fender lip, looked like it had never been washed and definitely not waxed, and was filthy inside. I was able to deal with with the interior and paint myself and a local shop repaired the rust. I have family in auto body so I know how the repair should go, but I'm not equipped or experienced to do it myself. I confirmed that they were going to cut out all of the rust and surrounding metal and fabricate a new fender lip followed by a repaint of the quarter panel. The cost was $1250.
If a repair is really well done, it's difficult to see that any work has been done. In this case, I could confirm that they did cut and rebuild the fender lip because they didn't do that great of a job and the curve doesn't quite match the other side. Plus, there were runs in the clear coat. Not great, but my wife didn't notice and the process had already taken several weeks so I tried to ignore it.
We live in MA so it's not great for cars. I wash both the Fit and my wife's car as often as I can, including in the middle of winter (I definitely know the joy of a hand wash on a 35 degree day), plus I've coated the undercarriage, inner fenders, etc. of both cars with PB Blaster Surface Shield. In other words, I do the best I can to keep rust away. But, almost exactly two years later the fender on my wife's car is rusting again in the repaired area. I went back to the shop with the original invoice and talked to the manager in hopes that they would help me out since it's the metal they replaced that is rusting. Nope. He said "yeah, rust... what are you going to do?" and offered to fix it for... $1250.
Back to your question. If you have a good car except for the rust, and you want to keep it long term, and you're willing to take other steps to prevent rust, and you can find a good shop that offers a guarantee on their work, it would be worth getting an estimate and thinking about repairing it. If your answer to all those questions isn't a resounding "Yes" then it's probably not worth a repair.
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