Yesterday, the car was taken for its first MOT since 2014, which means it had just been sat in a yard getting rained on with almost no movement for 4 years. When I first bought the car, I was impressed with how it showed absolutely no signs of rust whatsoever. The 205 was, for all intents and purposes, a very well designed car, in that it doesn’t suffer from the issue of having rust traps like other cars of the era, like Vauxhall Novas or Austin Metros etc. So it’s not entirely uncommon to find them with no rust.
…HOWEVER
In an MOT, the tester will get a screwdriver and walk under the car, poking various key structural parts to check their integrity. When the tester did this on mine, it unfortunately uncovered a bit of well hidden rot in the boot floor, the rear of the passenger side sill, the rear floor under the rear seats and also the floorpan in the driver’s footwell (ish). My mechanic had previously had the car up on the lift, and even he was amazed at how little it would require to go through an MOT, so this comes as a surprise to us both. Here’s the damage:
Boot floor
Passenger side rear sill
You can see here that the rust is all internal, and was not visible from the outside prior. Very much hoping that this rust does not go very far along the sill, or it will get expensive.
Front floor
Again, hoping this doesn’t go any further along the floor
As I say, I’m hoping that this rust is just what we can see and nothing else. The welding has already started, with the boot floor being completed. I’m not having new floors welded in or anything, most of it is just getting the bare minimum as I’m really not too bothered about it, provided it can get through an MOT. The car should be completed and MOTd by the middle of next week (though I think I’ve said that about 3 times, it really should this time).
Here's the complete MOT sheet
I knew about the horn and headlight prior, just couldn’t be arsed to fix it. Bar the rust, those are the only little things I have to fix.
