Thinner sheet metal steel than other cars?

[wwwdotgov]

Just wondering if the sheet metal panels on Festiva's are of a thinner gauge than usual? It just seems like most Festivas I see are dinged and dented up pretty good.
Do car manufacturers use thinner gauge steel on small cars compared to what they use on mid size cars? Did cars of that era like Tempo/Taurus/Escort/TBirds/Mustang have thicker skins?

Just curious. Thanks for any info.

[ryanprins13]

Cant speak for cars of the same era but it is much thicker metal than cars are made with since about 2000. My festiva has survived 3 bad hailstorms unscathed that demolished other vehicles and wrote them off. The worst one actually chipped some of my paint off but no dents and it turned other vehicles into golf balls and broke windows. You can sit on or lean on festivas and not dent them whereas you dont want to touch newer cars.
As far as having dents compared to vehicles its age its more about how much people care. If someone still has an old mustang they like it and fix it when it gets dented. But our festivas were worth $6000 25 years ago... Any vehicles that are that old and have a similar monetary and sentimental value to the owner have about the same amount of dents.


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[Eaglefreek]

I do believe they are thinner, but haven't measured them. It could also be that they don't have as much internal support to keep weight down. They dent and ding very easily.

[Advancedynamix]

They also suffer from cheap car syndrome. I have come out to people leaning on my festiva hundreds of times at convenience stores or grocery stores. People don't treat them with respect.
There isn't much support behind the panels on the doors and rear quarters. This makes them susceptible to dents ant warpage.

[wwwdotgov]

They also suffer from cheap car syndrome. I have come out to people leaning on my festiva hundreds of times at convenience stores or grocery stores. People don't treat them with respect.
There isn't much support behind the panels on the doors and rear quarters. This makes them susceptible to dents ant warpage.

I guess I have to agree.
In one sense I'm thinking, it's a small car and doesn't come close to filling a parking space, which leaves lots of room between cars surrounding it. But the dents and dings still exists. I guess most owners treat them as nothing more then A-to-B transportation.
But yes, in my search for buying my first Festiva, I've come across tons of cars with warped & dented rear quarters, roofs, etc.. Kinda disappointing!
But I'm crossing over from the Saturn world where polymer panels prevents dings and dents. Wish more car makers had plastic panels.

[ryanprins13]

Thinner sheet metal steel than other cars?

I guess I have to agree.
In one sense I'm thinking, it's a small car and doesn't come close to filling a parking space, which leaves lots of room between cars surrounding it. But the dents and dings still exists. I guess most owners treat them as nothing more then A-to-B transportation.
But yes, in my search for buying my first Festiva, I've come across tons of cars with warped & dented rear quarters, roofs, etc.. Kinda disappointing!
But I'm crossing over from the Saturn world where polymer panels prevents dings and dents. Wish more car makers had plastic panels.

Ever seen a saturn that got hit in -30c? Lol, they explode into a million pieces. Do they get soft in heat? It doesnt get that hot here... But they are nice to work on as far as bodywork though, just unbolt a door panel instead of re-skinning it.
And ya, it has a lot to do with not caring. Ive seen people intentionally dent their vehicles, ive sat with my wife on the roof of a civic i owned that i didn't like... :p

[wwwdotgov]

True, Saturn's can take small hits, but the panels can shatter in larger accidents. And no, I don't think heat effects Saturn panels one bit. I even tried heating a panel once with a propane torch to see how plyable it was for flaring the fenders. Heat didn't faze it like I thought it would.

[lessersivad]

I would agree the metal seems to be thinner. That's bad for minor contact or people leaning on them.

The good news it's easier to work a dent out because of how thin the metal is.

[Advancedynamix]

Yeah, the metal is very maliable. That's a good and bad thing. It stretches easy if people shut the doors wrong or lean on them hard.
Another thing too, they are really really airtight and when you try to shut the door (with all the windows closed) it often takes a good solid effort. People who don't care about the car will give it a hip check to shut it. That's a guaranteed dent right there. It's so hard to find nice doors because of this.

[FestYboy]

^ just gotta know where to hit it... and the handle or anywhere forward of it ain't the spot.

[william]

I shut my doors with my hand on the glass. I spent way to much time fixing the dent around both door handles.

[UglyEd]

Well i must admit that most of the time i will leave my window down a tiny bit to make the doors shut easy mine has a couple of dents near the door handles, also better slam that hatch nothing qorse than drivin down the road and realize the hatxh iant shut all the way and is rattling like crazy.

Uglyed and the Steve

[theastronaut]

It's not so much that the metal is thin, it's that it doesn't have any shape- it's all pretty much flat. You can take a sheet of 22 gauge steel and add a bit of crown to it in an English wheel or planishing hammer and it gains a lot of strength, and would be more dent/ding resistant than a flat piece of 20 gauge.

[Greywolf]

Light weight has a price, and nothing lasts forever.

But if we know how to work metal, maybe we can "CRAFT" it for a long time

[F3BZ]

just memory observation but seems like the rear fender bulge is most likely place to be dented on a festiva. had a microburst shoot some small branches at one of mine and had 5 small heartbreaking dings.