Have you ever seen a nice car with a crushed rear end and joked that all it needed was for someone to weld on a new tail section? Apparently in Russia, that’s not as far-fetched as it might sound.
A Russian mechanic accepted such a task. The car to be saved was a BMW 7 Series with a bashed-in butt that would probably have most insurance companies totaling the car. In this case, however, either the car owner or the mechanic decided it could be saved and since they had a donor rear end of a BMW 7 Series laying around, they must have figured, “What have we got to lose?”
This is obviously not the guy’s first trunk transplant. He knew where and how to cut off the damaged end, how to mate and prep the replacement, and certainly, how to weld the two together.
We’re not sure if the same person did the bodywork that hid the welded areas and blended the paint, but at least in the low-resolution video, it looked good. However, was it a safe and sound repair?
A good welder, working with good metal, and who properly prepares both parts to be welded, is capable of creating welds that are as strong as the original undamaged metal. Is that what happened here? We don’t know. The subframe and sheet metal on a unibody chassis can be put under a great deal of stress. Would they hold up to those stresses over time?
Another good question might be if the welds bisect engineered crumple zones, would the car react in an impact the way BMW designed it so as to protect the occupants? For that reason alone, we would not knowingly drive a car that had been welded together from two pieces.
But in Russia and probably many other places around the world, people apparently would, and the repair shops are so confident about the process that they document their skills and their results on YouTube.
The best advice might be “buyer beware.” There is CarFax service in Russia. Buyers of good-looking used BMWs there might want to take advantage of it.—Scott Blazey
Caution: Graphic images may not be suitable for BMW fans who don’t like seeing 7 Series Sedans cut in two!
[Photo and video courtesy of Arthur Tussik.]
