Signs your vehicle needs structural welding

Structural welding is needed when load-bearing steel — rails, outriggers, crossmembers, sills, mounts or hangers — has corroded or cracked to the point where it no longer carries load safely. There are usually warning signs before it fails.

Signs to take seriously

• A jacking point that crushes or feels soft under the jack
• Creaking or knocking from the underside over bumps
• Doors or panel gaps that have shifted on an older vehicle
• Orange staining weeping from a seam or box section
• Flaking, layered rust rather than light surface colour
• An NCT or CVRT advisory mentioning corrosion

Why waiting costs more

Structural corrosion never improves. Every wet month thins the steel further and widens the area that eventually has to be cut out, which is why the same repair costs less this year than next.

What a proper repair looks like

Cut back to clean metal, replacement section fabricated in the correct gauge, full-penetration MIG welds, seams sealed, primed, painted and coated. Anything less — plate over rust, filler, seam sealer across a hole — is not a structural repair.

Read more on structural welding repairs, or book a free chassis check.