Just Bought A Yaris, Not Quite One Carefull Lady Owner

[astrovanman]

Nice work and thanks for posting pics, its good to see whats under the skin...Johnny

[S.Kayani]

coming together nicely there mate :-)

[Haylands]

Hi

Had a spare afternoon during the week so I took the front wings off again and "edged" them up, basically sprayed the edges and bits that can't be seen when they are fitted, you them line them up properly and bolt them back on finally ready for spraying. This is important with metallic paint, the particles lie in a particular way and are also effected by gravity so if you take a wing off and spray it flat on a stand and also spray the door on the car, even if you use the same paint the color will look different. So to get round it you edge up the wings first, finally fit them and then spray the wing and door on the car. The bumpers and bonnet will be sprayed off the car as these don't have such a large joining area with other panels (the sides of the bonnet meeting the wings don't show because of the difference between the horizontal bonnet and vertical wings) so the difference is not noticeable....

Anyway the rear window finally turned up, had three people try to remove one before someone managed it without smashing the window, had to clean off all the old bonding agent then remove the bits of smashed glass stuck to the car, people are always amazed by how hard and strong this stuff is, I had to chisel it off with a hammer and chisel. There are four little spacers that stop the window from "sinking" too far into its hole, I managed to save these and use them again, so a tube of black goo later (Brand name is Sikoflex don't get this stuff on your fingers, it doesn't come off!!!) and a few bits of cardboard to space it up and down and the window is in. I did this before the paintwork in case I scratched the car getting the old stuff off....

Also got the last part needed, a Battery clamp, it was the only missing part when the car turned up....

So it was all set to go, I booked an MOT with the garage next door to the spray shop so I could drive the car there with no tax.

It is also booked in for a VIC test in a couple of weeks, this is done by VOSA to most Cat C damaged cars to confirm their identity and make sure it's not a ringer, when checked you get a V5 and can tax it....

So a couple of pics of it before it went to the painters...

Before

Pete

[shaikhee]

im new to this forum, but remember looking at this thread when i was looking to get my yaris aaages ago! its been good to see how the car has progressed and definitely taught me a thing or two!

best of luck with the MOT mate!

[Haylands]

Hi all

Well I popped in today to see if any work had been started only to find the car in the paint booth, they were quiet yesterday so 3 blokes jumped on the Yaris and had all the filler work done and primered, they have finished the front and rear bumpers, all four pieces, and were just base coating the Shell, it's had both front wings, bonnet, drivers door, and rear wing painted. Looks pretty good in base coat.... will look very nice when lacquered....

So it comes back tomorrow afternoon... more to follow soon

As an aside the alternator light went out half way to the body shop and has been fine since, so probably water in it somewhere... hope it stays fixed....

Shell

Bumpers

Pete

[astrovanman]

Thats sweet, i like the attention to detail that your putting in, can't wait to see it all finished, well done...Johnny

[Haylands]

Hi

Thanks for the positive comments,

Just picked it up from the paint shop, drove it home over salt laden roads so I've just spent 1/2 hour with the jetwash washing all the salt off under the front wings. I had to leave the plastic arch shields off when it went for paint, they stick out too much around the arch and at the rear of the front wing. Anyway this needed a good wash, I didn't want to salt spray it and then seal it in. It's bl**dy cold out there so I'm a bit frozen but it had to be done....

To keep costs down they have just sprayed it, it needs a good clean and polish now, there are a few small areas of overspray that I will have to clean off, they are not bad a clay bar should sort them out....

It passed it's MOT and is booked in for it's V.I.C. check on Tuesday so I should then get a log book and we can tax it ready for the off on March 8th. Jessica is getting excited about it and is dead chuffed with it.

Here are a few pics for now, I will put the costings up later...

What do you think?

Pete

[LCPete]

Well done that looks really smart will be like a new car :)

[Haylands]

Hi

Sorted out the cost of this, the original purchase price was £395, this had come down from £699. The breakers had had the car for three months, I had seen it and just waited for the price to drop. They couldn't be bothered to put the Battery on that was in the boot or blow the tyres up and subsequently nobody wanted it as a non runner. I went to have a look and offered £350, the guy showed me the paperwork from the insurance company which showed they had paid £375 for it so he said he would let it go for the £395.

Most of the other parts have come from eBay, I was in no rush so just waited until bits at the right price came up, the headlight for 99p was a real bargain £12 postage was a bit high but the overall price was good. The bonnet wings and front bumper were another good buy. The bodywork price is low, it was done as a fit in job but ended up being done in record time...... I have probably spent £20-£30 on bits and bobs along the way.

Yaris purchase price 395.00

Bonnet/wings/front bumper 80.00

Headlight 12.99

Rear bumper 30.00

Front panel 47.74

Wishbone 35.00

Radiator 58.00

Vvti Badge 2.00

Window 30.00

Battery clamp 6.00

Body work 350.00

Number plates 14.95

Total £1061.68

I was hoping to come in under £1000, not bad really I did get the body shop to do more than I would have done because I ran out of time because of my knee injury...

So for £1061.68 we have a 2000 1ltr Yaris GS with 61,000 miles, one owner, now in excellent condition, everything works as it should.

I have had a look around and seen similar spec cars with price tags ranging from £2200 to £3400 (think this bloke was on drugs!!!) I recon it's worth somewhere above £1800 so not bad....

The other way to look at it is what you can buy for £1000 that a young driver can drive.... I saw an old battered rusty Corsa for sale at £850 or a starship mileage Ford Ka for £995... This Yaris feels modern to drive, has airbags and a proper crumple zone and will do high 40's mpg.

So all in all a pretty good result..... I will put up some final pictures when it is all done...

We have got a few things to add as extras, reversing sensors (colour coded already) and remote locking to name but two so I will let you know how we get on...

Thanks for the interest.... now does anyone want to make an offer for the car, I can always tell Jess it got stolen!!?!?!??!!

Pete

[Demonic Angel]

That's an amazing achievement - just shows what you can do if you have the patience to do so!

Very well done on a great looking little car!

[Blue84]

Wow thats really impressive, what a great achievement to have done.

[Haylands]

Hi

Just been looking at all the old pics and thought I'd do a before and after photo

Pete

[junebug1701]

Hi

Just been looking at all the old pics and thought I'd do a before and after photo

Pete

Pete, that's a fantastic job, I am very impressed. I hope you daughter knows how lucky she is. I wish I could do something like this for mine--she's driving a beat up '95 Nissan. You must have learned a lot while doing this project. Congratulations!

P.S. Don't forget the Toyota emblem up front!! :D

[Haylands]

Hi

Just been looking at all the old pics and thought I'd do a before and after photo

Pete

Pete, that's a fantastic job, I am very impressed. I hope you daughter knows how lucky she is. I wish I could do something like this for mine--she's driving a beat up '95 Nissan. You must have learned a lot while doing this project. Congratulations!

P.S. Don't forget the Toyota emblem up front!! :D

Hi

Do you mean this one!!

I stuck it back on only minutes after that other photo was taken, it does look a bit bare without it....

Thanks for the comments

Pete

[S.Kayani]

looks spot on mate! nice one :-)

is the plastic grill on the bottom half of the bumper missing?

[Haylands]

Hi

Yes it's as it came back from the paint shop, needs wheel arch liners, front undertray, lower grille, rear inner bumper corners, some more badges and a few other bits putting back on.....

Pete

[Haylands]

Hi

Over the weekend I replaced all the plastic arch liners, the driver’s side ones were quite well misshapen but if you heat them up real hot with a hot air gun they go all floppy and spring back to the correct shape, then cool them down and they go hard again.

Put loads of antirust on all the exposed bits I could see before fitting them up.

We had to change the off/side wishbone and antiroll bar link and seeing as they were pretty cheap I got ones for the nearside as well, I changed them as well but I do have to say the old ones looked in very good condition after 61,000 miles and 8 years service. These are really easy to do on a Yaris took about 20mins start to finish.

Also had a few little bits to finish, I bought some stainless steel 10mm bolts to replace all the original ones that were rusting a bit so I did that and also the bottom rad hose was leaking, the Toyota hose clamp was obviously week and wouldn't seal when the temp came up and the system pressurised. I also flushed the system through and filled it with the pretty pink coolant, we got a genuine service kit, oil filter, washer, air filter and plugs for £15 from eBay so these went on as well.

Gave it a good polish, used a claybar first to remove overspray and grinding dust then gave it a good going over with Meguiars, it now feels silky smooth all over. The inside cleaned up well and has been very well looked after, there are no tears/burns/scuffs anywhere.... just lots of dog hair.... both me and Jess are allergic to dogs so we sniffed a bit....

Anyway it passed its V.I.C test so I got it some tax and have been driving it.

Took it to a tyre shop and had all the tyres taken off the wheels, all inspected for damage (two were flat when we bought it) anyway there was no sign of any damage, the front two are nearly new Goodyears, had them all balanced and the tracking checked... the tracking was waaaaaaaay out because of the accident, see below

You can just see that the tracking was 10mm out, that is quite a lot, it was towing in so the car ran straight but the front wheels were fighting each other, this made the steering over sensitive, it was corrected OK, the camber on the front nearside is 0.05 degrees out this isn't adjustable so can stay like it, it's not that bad.

I am a very old customer of the garage so they did all that nice and cheap at £40 all in as a present for Jess....

It drives very well and once all the rust had worn off the discs and drums is nice and quite as well, done several hundred miles now and I really like it...

Took it shopping yesterday and took this photo to prove to Jess that you can get quite a bit of shopping in the boot, even with the seat fully back. It's so she is under no illusion as to who is supposed to do the shopping once she passes her test!!!!

Just one issue with the throttle pedal but I will put that on another thread.

Thanks for reading

Pete

[m47een]

Hi Pete,

Really well done take my hat of to you, I have been following this thread very closely and the work done has been to a very high standard.

I do hope your girl realises how lucky she is and what a nice car she will be driving.

Well done

[Yaris SR Kid]

Very happy you brought it back from the dead

[Raeman]

Seems a great job you have done there Pete.

Allways nice to see a car resurected from the scrappy!

Nice one.

Btw.....What's the next project?? :D

[Haylands]

Hi Pete,

Really well done take my hat of to you, I have been following this thread very closely and the work done has been to a very high standard.

I do hope your girl realises how lucky she is and what a nice car she will be driving.

Well done

Thanks for that, yes she does, she can't wait to slip the clutch or kangaroo hop down the road!!!!

Very happy you brought it back from the dead

Yes it's very eco friendly I suppose, one scrap car repaired with mostly bits from other scrap cars.....

Seems a great job you have done there Pete.

Allways nice to see a car resurected from the scrappy!

Nice one.

Btw.....What's the next project?? :D

Younget daughter is 17 in about 18mths, she wants a pink Street Ka!!!!

Damaged Street Ka's are very rare and still fetch silly money so she may end up with a normal one and a tin opener!!

Mind you I think a pink Yaris would look nice

Before then the next project is to enlarge the garage, it's 11 meters long but only 3 wide so difficult to work on cars inside, we could have done more ourselves on the Yaris with the extra bit of room. Plans are with the planners at the moment for an 11 x 2 meter extension making a 5 x 11 meter garage, big enough to work on cars..... mind you I've got to do a 6.5 x 4 meter Sun room on the back of the house to keep "er indoors" happy..... so plenty to keep me busy, also central heating re fit for my Mother and a new bathroom for the in laws... plus I've still got to decorate our house, build an en suite and replace our bathroom as well, we bought it last May and have done a lot to it already, underfloor heating, total refit downstairs, new kitchen, solid oak floors, opened up rooms.... etc etc...

My project this morning is seing if I can add automatic headlights to my Verso, the dash lights come on with the ignition and you end up forgetting to put the lights on, I've got this little kit from Maplins and am going to see if I can make it work.... you have to make it all up and I've had to modify it a bit so it will take a bit of playing to make it work, but I am hopeful, I've mounted the sensor in a switch blank and plan to mount that on the top of the dash somewhere...

So I better crack on with it

Pete

[Haylands]

Hi

Just thought I'd put this story to bed, the big day was today so at midnight last night the car looked like this

We had the big opening and then her first drive on the road at 00.01, she did real well, we were out for 40mins and she didn't stall it once.....

Thanks for all the kind words from everyone....

Pete

[Cyker]

LOL! Gift-wrapped as well!!

A truely stunning job mate; I'd swear it's better than new, given the attention to detail you've applied to it!

Thanks for documenting it all too - Don't see many things like this for 'normal' cars, so it's quite informative :)

[nickp8]

Hi

Sorted out the cost of this, the original purchase price was £395, this had come down from £699.

Yaris purchase price 395.00

Bonnet/wings/front bumper 80.00

Headlight 12.99

Rear bumper 30.00

Front panel 47.74

Wishbone 35.00

Radiator 58.00

Vvti badge 2.00

Window 30.00

Battery clamp 6.00

Body work 350.00

Number plates 14.95

Total £1061.68

Pete

Car looks great. How much was the re-spray?

Nickp.

[Haylands]

Hi

Sorted out the cost of this, the original purchase price was £395, this had come down from £699.

Yaris purchase price 395.00

Bonnet/wings/front bumper 80.00

Headlight 12.99

Rear bumper 30.00

Front panel 47.74

Wishbone 35.00

Radiator 58.00

Vvti badge 2.00

Window 30.00

Battery clamp 6.00

Body work 350.00

Number plates 14.95

Total £1061.68

Pete

Car looks great. How much was the re-spray?

Nickp.

Nick

As above mate, all paintwork came in at £350, we did do most of the prep at home though....

Pete