Hi, this is my first forum post so hopefully this goes well. I've recently bought a W202 C43 AMG for an absolute bargain of a price. I had already checked out the underside as I was aware it was going to need a fair bit of welding repairs. My good friend is a specialist in this area of vehicle fabrication and has estimated me a pretty hefty but fair cost of repair. We planned to replace the outer sills, repair or replace the inner sills, jacking points and floor pans both sides including the rear pocket on the offside rear of the car plus a full rust conversion of the underside of the car. We are talking the better part of a full underside restoration. The trouble we now face is the supplier of the panels to repair this car have got back to us and said that the floor pans are completely unavailable apart from a few scattered across America. If we were to order these the price is going to increase considerably. Or my friend is considering fabricating them from scratch however this will also raise the labour costs considerably.

TLDR Massive welding bill that has now grown considerably. Has anyone had experience like this where floor pans have to be fabricated from scratch? Any advice on this situtation would be greatly appreciated. Do I bite the bullet?

Hello there, this is the first time that I’ve heard of a W202 having significant welding issues.

I know that many owners in colder climate have issues with rust due to the salt on the ground.

What do you think is causing your welding issues? Is it that the welds have been rusted?

Cheers,
Sentinel55

It is mostly down to poor repairs in the past. The rust has spread from the sills into the floor pans on both sides of the car. To get this repaired where it won't need welding repairs in the near future the floor pans need to be replaced however direct replacements cannot be sourced at a realistic price so I have the option to have them fabricated from scratch. I have lots of money in this car before I am out of pocket however if it is considered to be a a better choice to source these parts required instead of fabrication I would be more inclined to spend the money and repair it that way. I don't doubt my friends quality in the slightest but there might be something I'm missing as I have not had a project like this before.

I am from the UK where they salt the roads heavily and we suffer extensively with rust on a lot of cars much younger than this.

Doesn't the dealer still have parts available for the W202? I would have thought that body panels would be around for some time more before being discontinued.

None of the floor panels are available anymore… I suggest finding a doaner 202 and cut and weld in panels.

All the metal should be the same on any w202. Recommend cut and harvest from the salvage yard.

But you're in a climate where rust is an issue so this might not be that easy. Luckily I live in the southern US. I've never seen an MB rust here.

I'm in the UK, so fully understand your pain where rust is concerned!

For you guys in the US, rust is the single biggest killer of W202, C208, W210 & W220 models over here, due to the combination of wet winters, heavy salt usage and poor quality metal used during the DaimlerChrysler era. Visible bubbling on the arches within the first 3 to 5 years wasn't unusual unfortunately.

My C43 had both floorpans replaced around 10 years ago, but OE panels were still available at that point. As others have said, if faced with the same thing now I'd look to find the cleanest example of any W202 that I could and cut the panels out of that to use.