Date:         Wed, 19 Apr 2000 20:30:21 EDT
Reply-To:     Ssittservl@AOL.COM
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         S Sittservl <Ssittservl@AOL.COM>
Subject:      Seam rust.  Yuck.
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"

I have seam rust on my '88 Westfalia.  Not exactly a big surprise,
of course.  It's primarily in the low horizontal seam on the driver's
side, just like everybody else's.  For a while it was just bubbling
up under the paint, but now the paint has flaked off significantly.
No rust-through, as far as I can tell.  Also, when I had the fridge
out a while back, I had Ziebart put rust convertor and anti-rust
protector (a thick waxy stuff) in the wall, so supposedly I shouldn't
get any new rust via that route.

So my question is, what to do about it.  I've followed past rust
discussions on the list, but I haven't quite managed to gather what
to do.  I'm probably not up to doing any serious body work myself,
though I could probably manage something easy.  Also, I don't
necessarily need "show quality" results - I just want something
that looks reasonably good for a 12-year-old vehicle (which I'm
planning to keep long-term), and I want to stop the progression
of the rust.

I went to three body shops and got estimates.  Here's what they offered:

Solution 1: "grind and fill" rusted seam, and repaint the area.  However,
    all said the rust might return.
Dealer: $898, 1 year warrenty on rust return
Independant shop I've used before: $856, no warrenty on rust return
Maaco: $616, either no or 90 day warrenty (I forget which)

Solution 2: replace lower half of the large side panel, plus
    the narrow bottom side panel, and repaint the area.
Dealer: didn't check - they reccomended this only if
    they found rust-through during the grind-and-fill.
Independant body shop: $1441, guarenteed no rust return
Maaco: $1547, guarenteed against rust, but I don't know for how long.

(Yeah, I know Maaco's reputation.  They did fine on a very small job
I gave them a few weeks ago, though, and examples they showed me
of their work looked good, but I'd check more thoroughly before using
them.)

So: all of these are expensive.  Is the grind and fill likely to be good
enough?  Does anyone have anything less expensive and/or more
effective to reccomend?

                                      -Steven Sittser