Destroyed Car interior

[Militant]

Also saying junkyard. You can get some simple interior tools off amazon for cheap, and probably do a lot of it yourself, minus the headliner. Most interior panels simply snap or pop into and out of place, and usually only have 1 or 2 screws on them. It's really easy to do interior work if you're halfway decent with your hands. You can get step by step guides on various forums as well.

[Brill Weave]

Militant brings up an extremely good point. If you're able to pick up the pieces, you should be able to install them all yourself. I've done numerous replacement jobs on many cars with nothing more than a how to page on the intrawebs. The big thing is that some of the fixes can be time consuming. So you need to decide whether you want to spend your money or spend a few days of your time working on this.

[Tyche]

I'd avoid self installation of the weather stripping, if you get a leak and soak your carpets, you'll pay for the detail and reinstall. Flooded carpets suck to detail. Interior has to be completely pulled, seats and all, carpet pulled, insulation separated and all hung and cleaned. Not cheap. Door panels could be an issue depending on wiring.

[zoobernut]

Well after rebuilding the interior today with everything I am pretty confident I can put the hard plastic panels and the weather stripping back in place properly. As Militant said they just snapped in place really easy once I lined up the panel with the correct holes. As for the weather stripping on the ford focus it isn't the kind with adhesive that sticks on. It has a metal track and it snaps onto the frame so there is not really any room to install it incorrectly. I am definitely going to install everything myself as I get new parts (looking at it today there is less that needs to actually be replaced than I thought). The only part I will have professionally done is the headliner.

The doors are fine and most of the hard plastic parts are fine they were just pulled down but not destroyed or chewed on. Only the weather stripping, headliner, and driver side visor got it really bad.

Right now the car is functional and everything is tucked out of the way and cleaned up so the car can be driven until I get parts for it. It only took me about an hour to reinstall all the panels and the weather stripping and another hour or two vacuuming and cleaning the car out.

[Brill Weave]

Nice. Good for you man. Most younger people now a days don't even bother to do their own repairs. They always just assume it's too difficult for them. Jesus now I feel old.

[zoobernut]

Nice. Good for you man. Most younger people now a days don't even bother to do their own repairs. They always just assume it's too difficult for them. Jesus now I feel old.

Thank you.

How old are you Brill? I thought we were pretty close together in age. My wife and I are both 29.

[Brill Weave]

Ha that's because we are somewhat close! I'm 33.

[Furionstormrage]

Nice. Good for you man. Most younger people now a days don't even bother to do their own repairs. They always just assume it's too difficult for them. Jesus now I feel old.

Well put, it always amazes me how unwilling the average teen-20's is to learn even the most basic repairs.

Seems like the issue is mostly resolved, glad it worked out that you don't need a lot. Just call around interior shops and body shops, find the best deal on the headliner. The visor is easy to replace if you find one at a junkyard, just a bolt or two holding it on.

[blck]

Serious question..

If you are going to be having a baby soon, why would you want a dog around that acts like that?
Yea i know the thread is about your interior to your ford focus, but think for a minute if you want a dog around that chews up shit when you are not around.

[Tyche]

Assuming the visor has a lit vanity mirror, may be some wiring there too. Depending on what is being done, I usually do my own repairs. Some shit just isn't worth the time or risk though. Once I changed the sparkplugs on my wife's old Kia. Once. It required removal of the intake manifold. Whatever korean designed that needs to be shot in the face. I wouldn't touch weatherstripping because I wouldn't want to unbolt every seat and console in my car to pull the carpets if I fucked it up. I've never seen the weatherstripping guide before though, maybe it'll be easy.

Also, I'm curious, how in the hell did the dog managed to rip up the weatherstripping? I'm guessing it was the stripping around the window and not around the door. If that's the case, shouldn't be too much of an issue to change. For some reason, I was imagining all the stripping around the door, but that seems improbable.

[zoobernut]

In the ford focus the weather stripping that is attached to the main body of the car that the door seals to is on the inside. When the plastic hard panels are removed the inside half of the weather stripping becomes exposed. It shouldn't be too bad because like other parts it isn't glued in it just snaps to the body frame.

To blck I don't really want to talk about it because no matter what I say people have their opinions on dogs and how dogs behave and nothing I can say will change their mind. If I start to justify anything in this thread with regards to the dog it will just turn into a giant flame war/troll/argument that will resolve nothing and no one will actually read any posts before spouting their opinion on the matter.

[Furionstormrage]

To blck I don't really want to talk about it because no matter what I say people have their opinions on dogs and how dogs behave and nothing I can say will change their mind. If I start to justify anything in this thread with regards to the dog it will just turn into a giant flame war/troll/argument that will resolve nothing and no one will actually read any posts before spouting their opinion on the matter.

You're a smart man.

I did forget that some wiring might be required on the visor, if it has a light. Hopefully just a connector, at worst it's very easy to splice the new wires into the old.

[Militant]

Nice. Good for you man. Most younger people now a days don't even bother to do their own repairs. They always just assume it's too difficult for them. Jesus now I feel old.

Heh, it's funny you say that. I've always been into cars, (used to sell them, now I'm a mechanic) but before I became a mechanic I was like terrified of working on them because it seemed so complicated and so easy to fuck something up. Now that I work on them daily for a living I laugh to myself sometimes when I see these repair bills (and I'm talking fair bills, fixing only what needs to be fixed, and doing it at a fair price, not ripping people off) and I just can't believe the shit costs what it does. So many people spend $300-$400 bucks on a brake job they can do on their own with 2 wrenches, a pry-bar, and about $100 worth of parts.

[Militant]

Assuming the visor has a lit vanity mirror, may be some wiring there too. Depending on what is being done, I usually do my own repairs. Some shit just isn't worth the time or risk though. Once I changed the sparkplugs on my wife's old Kia. Once. It required removal of the intake manifold. Whatever korean designed that needs to be shot in the face. I wouldn't touch weatherstripping because I wouldn't want to unbolt every seat and console in my car to pull the carpets if I fucked it up. I've never seen the weatherstripping guide before though, maybe it'll be easy.

Also, I'm curious, how in the hell did the dog managed to rip up the weatherstripping? I'm guessing it was the stripping around the window and not around the door. If that's the case, shouldn't be too much of an issue to change. For some reason, I was imagining all the stripping around the door, but that seems improbable.

Yeah, spark plugs on some cars can be a royal pain in the ass. You have to take the intake manifold off on lots of front wheel drive v6's (because of the transverse mounted engine). Hell on the northstar engines in caddilac's the starter is literally in the engine under the fucking intake manifold. Back in the day when every car was a rear wheel drive v8 or inline 6, you could basically sit in the engine bay of the car and change the plugs.

[zoobernut]

Got back from the pick-n-pull they happened to have an '05 ford focus zx4 in which is quite rare. I got the door weather stripping for the front and rear door for only $11 for both of them. Super happy about that. Too bad it had a gray interior otherwise it would have been perfect. I am going to go back tomorrow to pull out the headliner since I ran out of time today because they were closing. They are only going to charge me $22 for the headliner then it will be another $175 to have it reupholstered to the right color.

[Furionstormrage]

Heh, it's funny you say that. I've always been into cars, (used to sell them, now I'm a mechanic) but before I became a mechanic I was like terrified of working on them because it seemed so complicated and so easy to fuck something up. Now that I work on them daily for a living I laugh to myself sometimes when I see these repair bills (and I'm talking fair bills, fixing only what needs to be fixed, and doing it at a fair price, not ripping people off) and I just can't believe the shit costs what it does. So many people spend $300-$400 bucks on a brake job they can do on their own with 2 wrenches, a pry-bar, and about $100 worth of parts.

Completely agreed. I'm not a mechanic, got a few ASE certifications and I spent years as an engine machinist and even more as a counterman, and have always fixed my own cars. I also used to be heavily involved in "the scene" (street racing before Fast & The Furious ruined it, spending Thursdays at the local 1/8mile track, fixing up everything from Tbuckets to Trans Ams to Skyline-powered 240's). It astounds me what people pay for simple jobs (Again, at perfectly fair prices from the garages). I guess though, seeing the other side as a counterman, there are just people out there that are incapable of doing a simple brake job or oil change. I've got a million "jesus, this guy does NOT need to try fixing his own car" stories.

[Dmitry]

Heh, it's funny you say that. I've always been into cars, (used to sell them, now I'm a mechanic) but before I became a mechanic I was like terrified of working on them because it seemed so complicated and so easy to fuck something up. Now that I work on them daily for a living I laugh to myself sometimes when I see these repair bills (and I'm talking fair bills, fixing only what needs to be fixed, and doing it at a fair price, not ripping people off) and I just can't believe the shit costs what it does. So many people spend $300-$400 bucks on a brake job they can do on their own with 2 wrenches, a pry-bar, and about $100 worth of parts.

I used to be the same way, where I didn't want to work on anything because I was scared I'd break something or not get everything back together right. I've started doing little things to my car lately and hopefully I'll get around to doing the bigger things. Working 3rd shift doesn't help any since I don't have a garage and can't really work at night.

The kia post also reminds me of my Baretta that liked to eject spark plugs.