Underseal on sill split - how to rectify?

The Governor

The Governor

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I was mooching about under the car yesterday for no good reason really and I noticed that the underseal below the sills has come away just behind the front drivers wheel, just ahead of the jacking point.

I'll stick a photo up when I get home, but it's like it has peeled back somehow, and there is a bit of the metal underneath protruding out (subframe?).

First question, should I worry about it really, or just leave it?

If the consensus is to do something, is there a way I can seal up the small area affected? I don't especially want to have the whole treatment redone along that side fo the body as I assume it would be expensive...

Could I/should I just rub it down, and seal it with Hammerite?

Roy
 
It's within warranty, I was going to contact the dealer, although I'm then expecting a whole load of hassle with them saying it's been done to the car by a third party etc etc...
 
Could be the usual, where its been jacked up & this does cause some issues with sills bending & the coating can hang or look messed up, but without a pic we cant say.
 
NHN said:
Could be the usual, where its been jacked up & this does cause some issues with sills bending & the coating can hang or look messed up, but without a pic we cant say.
Click to expand...

Thanks chaps, I've done a picture, not sure how well it comes across, but it looks like the very lowest part of the sill has been bent up and outwards, the thing is when I had the tyres replaced I could have sworn the jacks were nowhere near that point. So, next question is, how would you go about fixing something like this? Is it even worth fixing?

Here's the pic, sorry you have to tilt your head a bit as I was shooting at an angle!

 
Yeah I'd say a jack has mangled that.
 
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Yeah it looks that way, I don't really know what to do about it to be honest...

I'm going to take it along to the guy who did my tyres recently and see what he says, although I doubt he has the facilities to repair it anyway...

I had a look at the manual to try to satisfy myself that I knew exactly where the jacking points are, I take it they are indicated by the round thing which is on the sill, almost directly in line with the wing mirror? The book is amazingly vague about where they are, it says they're marking by indentations but I can see any indentations for the life of me...

 
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Believe its the sill around that point, thought all A3s had the rubber jack pads fitted though? Worth getting some if not.

Jack Pad Kit - 1 Corner > Maintenance > S3 8P/Mk2 > AUDI A3/S3 > VW Specialists > PSI Tuning - VW Specialists

Best thing you can do with the split seal is to clean and dry it all out and reseal. That's deffo been jacked with little care to cause that, but you will split the underseal to a degree even doing it right but you shouldn't fold the sill over. The correct sill point is reinforced to the rear iirc.
 
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I took it to the local place that did my tyres just now, I took it there because they've got a great rep locally and I knew they wouldn't mash my rotors(!)

To be fair, he didn't do the whole sucking air through teeth and accuse me of doing it, he had a proper look, and while he's sure he used the correct jacking points he has accepted that he must have done it because otherwise he'd have seen it when doing it and mentioned it to me so I'd know he didn't cause the damage.

It's a reasonable sized operation, so he's asked if he can have it tomorrow and get his bodywork guy on it to have a proper look with a view to rectifying and sealing it, so we'll see where that goes from here, but he couldn't have been nicer about it really.

They do insurance work there etc so to be honest as long as he seals it up properly and gets it back into the correct shape I'll be happy enough.

By the way, those jack pads look interesting, but where exactly do they fit onto the car (considering the sill sits into the scissor jack) there must be somewhere else to push those pads into I guess?

[Edit] I figured out where they go, what's disappointing is they're not fitted as standard as it isn't unusual for a car to be jacked up on a lifter... what do they expect garages to do, jack them up on the sills?
 
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Wow I'm shocked, 1st ever time read something like that iirc, remind us who they are incase we need an honest garage :)
 
Yeah he was good about it, so far anyway. He is a genuine guy to be fair, I've used him for other cars and the local Facebook praise is always full of praise for his lot.

Dropping it in tomorrow, I expect it'll be there overnight possibly, he seemed to genuinely want to sort it out for me so fingers crossed. Still a bit annoyed with Audi that the sills and jacking points on these cars are so poor, it really shouldn't be possible to mangle a car just having the tyres done.
 
Yes, but in audi's eyes and tbh fair to them, it will either go into a garage that uses the correct jacking/ramps that don't damage the sills or you would use the supplied boot jack that specifically has the groove to avoid damaging the sills, so its not really audi's responsibility mate is it.
 
I sort of disagree to be honest, they should at least make those points strong enough to handle what is typically used to jack a car up, it's all a ruse to try and get you to only use the dealer for things you shouldn't need to imho... :)

They should at least leave the proper jack pads on the car from the factory...

I am a little bit worried about how he's going to lift the car up to fix it mind you!
 
You can go to any garage & they should have the correct lifting ramps/lifts/pads etc, its not an audi ploy at all fella, its down to the garage that works on the car, as you can easily use a trolley jack, if used properly without damaging the sills.

Its all too easy to blame audi for most things, when in all honesty it was an oversight by the person who was working in the car, my cars been lifted numerous times on the sills, only time I've crumpled was when I didn't do it properly with the correct pad, which is my fault.
 
Update :)

All sorted they've straightened it out, sealed it up so looks absolutely fine now.

They couldn't resist a "we can't really see how we did it" though at the end, I just kept saying that it hasn't been jacked up since :)

Anyway, I think I'll invest in some of those jack pads bmh.01 mentioned and probably some of those cut out jack stand thing (hockey puck type stands) if I can find any that suit before I get the tyres done next time!
 
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Glad you got it sorted.

The guys I used to get my tyres done last week, put it on a ramp & used one of those sub-frame jacks - much less chance of damage. 40 quid to change two tyres isn't cheap though.
 
No, 40 quid to swap two tyres is a lot!

I think a sub-frame jack is the way to go, my local said they got mine on a four poster-lift and then lifted the car on the sub-frame so they could get under and fix it properly.

I'm sure my local guy will be a bit more wary of Audi's in future... they're not a set of cowboys, I hear nothing but good reports about them and have used them myself for other things on my Ford, I just think they were caught out by the cheese like properties of the Audi sill, and not having a slotted adapter.

I'm now hunting for something with a slot in of the right dimensions so the sill can slot into it and let the body of the car take the weight.

That way I can make whoever fits tyres next time use slotted adapters as supplied by me :)
 
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