OT - I do it to myself.. Another unrelated (mostly) project.

[skunkworks]

Look mom - no airbag light (or any other error lights!) Yay

[skunkworks]

Ok - I will get the exact amount soon. Currently I am slightly over $5K into this project.

KBB gives the value of this car for 'fair' condition as $14,443 to $16,384.

Not planning on selling it. It will be a great family car for us.

sam

[mattthemuppet]

that's awesome, good for you!

sorry about that Noiteon

[sch]

2017 may be before all the brake/pedestrian/front-rear-side collision sensors were fully extent, I understand these add significantly to the cost of
front end in particular repair as well as needing a number of computerized controllers to set them up and calibrate (like your airbag tool). It is
interesting to watch some of the youtubers that do this for a living, eg vehcor, and what is involved. Was surprised how straight forward reskinning
a door was for example. There must be a huge amount of fluff in body shop estimates, makes me wonder in inscos really pay that amount or if it
is sort of like hospital bills where the hospital bills 10x and the insco or medicare pays 1-2x. Doubt inscos would get more than a 10-15% bump off
body shop estimates, but I wonder.

[rmcphearson]

Awesome work Sam. Thanks for letting us follow along. I’m inspired.

[skunkworks]

I still need to put together the interior.. Kinda wanting to get a replacement headliner. The one in the car is pretty ratty... (curtain air bags did a number on it)

My co-worker took it for a spin (BMW guy) and really liked it. Say it is way better than his daily driver (Astra). My other coworker, after riding to lunch in it, said 'You really got a good deal here..' also said I should keep the interrior stripped.. (no. - summer sun really radiates off the sheet metal..)

There wasn't any real surprises. The only think that I didn't know going in was that the plastic intake needed to be replaced. I also really thought I was going to have to send out the airbag module to be reset. The software I found (vcds from rosstech) did a really good job reading and resetting the canbus modules. Highly recommended - mainly for VW...

sam

[mattthemuppet]

If you like quiet cars you could spend a bit of time and money putting in insulation before you do the interior. Doing our Honda Pilot cost use perhaps $300, but it was money well spent for a whole bunch of reasons (cooler in the Texas sunshine, less tiring on long drives, daughter with hearing issues can hear us better in the back row).

[skunkworks]

If you like quiet cars you could spend a bit of time and money putting in insulation before you do the interior. Doing our Honda Pilot cost use perhaps $300, but it was money well spent for a whole bunch of reasons (cooler in the Texas sunshine, less tiring on long drives, daughter with hearing issues can hear us better in the back row).

what do you use for automotive insulation?

[mattthemuppet]

I used the equivalent of dynamat (can't remember the name right now) and then 10mm closed cell foam, all bought off amazon. The tar paper stuff lowers the resonance frequency of all the panels, but can make the interior "boomy", so the closed cell foam on top of that is need to reduce that effect. I also filled empty spaces in the door skins with some kind of recycled denim matting that I got from work. Made a really big difference. Only downside is that I can now hear more wind noise