Modern shite and corrosion

[bunglebus]

Following on from several threads recently regarding corrosion in modern-era cars, I wondered why this has started to become a problem. In the 1970's it was common to have to repair rust after a few years, so you'd often see patches of primer, odd wings/doors, black underseal sills/door bottoms etc etc. Then we seemed to move into a period where rust proofing was really good, galvanized bodyshells, cavity wax, multi-stage paint and all the rest. I've often said it's ironic that new cars are built better than ever (in terms of corrosion prevention) but most consumers want to get a new one every few years and most are probably binned off by 10 years old.

However having seen some of the pictures and stories about hidden corrosion in new(ish) cars, have we gone backwards? Are the bean counters running things again, like in the few years when Merc lost the plot and gave us cars than had serious structural corrosion as well as embarrassing scabby wings, arches etc after a few years on the road?

Maybe it makes more financial sense to put less protection on now, as Mr. Average won't want all the fuss of getting his car MoT'd at 3 years old, nice new one with all the latest gadgets, low* emissions and 57 airbags please.

 

I'm looking at the Ford Ka, Pug 306, Jaaags, Discos etc etc.

 

So...is it a few cars with accidental moisture traps, bean counters pinching pennies or something else? Brexit maybe?

 

Oh my '98 Passat is 19 years old, 200K on the clock, and has no corrosion to speak of - a few suspension components maybe but that's it.

 

[sierraman]

Cars are far better these days in terms of rust and durability. Not infallible by any means but much better. I still rustproof mine.

[Dave_Q]

A combination of brexit and deliberate penny pinching I think.

 

A 1 micron reduction in paint thickness will save a few grand over the production run of a car.

 

Also, all modern paints are shite, not like in the old days where they full of delicious solvents.

 

Also, sometimes moisture traps for stupid reasons.

 

Also, sometimes poor quality partly recycled steel.

[bunglebus]

Minty (as in Polo) looking Jaaag, MoT fail on corroded sills. I suppose it is 14 years old but rust used to be honest and grow on outer sills, door bottoms, around the headlights etc...didn't it?

 

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/X-TYPE-DIESEL-SPARES-OR-REPAIR-MOT-FAIL-DRIVES-GREAT-GOOD-BODYWORK-INTERIOR-/122558699430?hash=item1c891157a6:g:dVYAAOSw~rpZSk9B

 

[Sir Snipes]

I can't ever recall a time when cars in the uk have ever resisted rust. Some are better than others; s12 Silvias and Bluebirds were better than s13 200sx and Primeras but they all go sooner or later.

 

I think moderns just hide it under plastic panels.

[Junkman]

I have been owning cars for almost 35 years now and looking back, I'm completely unaware that during this period

there ever was a time when cars didn't rust. When exactly was that supposed to have taken place?

And which method unbeknownst to me did they employ to achieve this physically impossible phenomenon?

[gordonbennet]

Indeed, plastic panels and plastic bumpers that remove front and rear valances from the equation.

 

The trouble is because cars look rust free to their owners, and those owners that are increasingly bone idle seeing as so many basically rent the thing for 3 or 4 years and chuck it back, that no bugger think to hose the salt off the undersides and it gets left to bake on during the summer doing untold damage, not just to bodies but to poorly if at all painted suspensions and subframes brake pipes and calipers etc.

 

I can't recall a single car i ever bought where even the rear wheelarch lips, and fuck me what could be easier to clean out, weren't stuffed solid with the salt encrusted muck which started building up the very first week the car went on the road and has been there ever since.

 

How many cars have you bought where when you went to service the brakes, you found A a sliver of coppaslip on the alloy wheel spigot and B the brakes were all lubed up correctly?

I'll answer that for me, the Landcruiser i bought just after Christmas had coppaslip on the wheel spigots and some lubing of the brakes had happened reasonably recently, thats the only car i can recall that had evidence of  some decent servicing.

 

It doesn't happen, most manufacturers now have no proper brake servicing as part of their service schedules, Toyota used to every other year but i don't know if they still do, mostly its inspection which means peering at the calipers and pads through or from behind the wheel and squirting brake cleaner about.

In fact mostly its just inspections now, nothing to grease on most cars any more so no bugger spends any time underneath, including the servicing workshops.

[Bren]

I think manufactuerers now know mechanical and electrical faults will see the majority off before corrosion appears. It's those that soldier on that show the rot.

[hpi_matrix]

I think early-mid 90's was the hay-day of bullet proof cars.

[oldcars]

Has has been said the number of cars with arches full of mud can't help the rot. My 75 is not bad, one jacking point looking a bit bubbly but still soild and waxoil up. Reliant is fine  . Shuma is scabby, one sill has been welded. its getting two wings, one rear arch has been fixed and the other is needing done. And this is with me cleaning them out. I suppose for a car that was £5995 brand new in 2001 it is doing ok.

[Dick Longbridge]

I have been owning cars for almost 35 years now and looking back, I'm completely unaware that during this period

there ever was a time when cars didn't rust. When exactly was that supposed to have taken place?

And which method unbeknownst to me did they employ to achieve this physically impossible phenomenon?

B5 Audi A4. 1994-99ish production iirc. Honestly, they're built like bricks in shithouses. They just don't rust.

[Junkman]

I think early-mid 90's was the hay-day of bullet proof cars.

 

ROFL!

[Junkman]

B5 Audi A4. 1994-99ish production iirc. Honestly, they're built like bricks in shithouses. They just don't rust.

 

We have a proverb in Austria, which goes somewhat like this:

 

If you see a swallow, it doesn't necessarily mean it's Summer.

[Des]

I'm pleased to hear of rust making a comeback, car design has reached a pinnacle of vulgarity recently and I worried the repugnant blobs would be around forever. In fairness the motor industry did try to improve rustproofing at the embarrassment of the seventies, they mostly fucked this up until the nineties by which time the parameters started to change, not going to stay in the game with durable offerings any longer, they must market an instrument of debt generation.

[John F]

I think early-mid 90's was the hay-day of bullet proof cars.

 

I agree.

 

In many cases, the only 'electronic black boxes' in a lot of cars of this era were for the fuel injection / alarm & immobiliser, and quite a few mainstream manufacturers (Proton, Vauxhall, etc.) were galvanising their bodywork to prolong its service life. My 1994 Calibra is 23 years old and has never needed welding.

[alcyonecorporation]

B5 Audi A4. 1994-99ish production iirc. Honestly, they're built like bricks in shithouses. They just don't rust.

 

 

I presume the ones sent to Manchester were the rejects?  Or did every single one of them just get crashed and repaired poorly? 

[Matt]

My sister has a 12 plate car. The rear towing hook is brown. The car is white. Ford.

[Lacquer Peel]

A friend of mine has an early B5 Audi A4 TDI estate with nearly 300k at the last MOT, it doesn't look too bad considering it's been living in the north of Scotland.

[Dick Longbridge]

I presume the ones sent to Manchester were the rejects? Or did every single one of them just get crashed and repaired poorly?

 

Battered old ex-reppers, Shirley? I've had a couple, and despite being well over ten years old, they were far less rusty than a Transit with a fresh PDI sheet sat on the passenger seat.

[bunglebus]

I remember my mate's mum buying a nearly new white MK6 Escort that quickly developed a brown stain down the sill where it was rusting. Another reason why MK5/6 Escorts are THE DEVIL and should all be cubed.

[pilninggas]

Isn't part of the problem the transition to 'water based paint' [technically low VOC paints, regardless of base solvent] from cellulose and high-VOC paints?

 

The loss of thickness of primer and then over-paint has reduced the physical barrier that paint provides.

 

I'm anti EU, but don't blame the EU for this, althought the regulation comes from there. Simply all developed and post-developing countries are using these paints [low VOC, low carbon, lower toxicity etc]. Manufacturers need to improve galvanising thicknesses to compensate for these inorganic paints, but havent, hence the return of tinworm.

[2MB]

 

I'm looking at the Ford Ka, Pug 306, Jaaags, Discos etc etc.

 

I have to say I've found 306s to be rather corrosion resistant. Even the one that went into a barrier backwards and got left caked in salt for months didn't start to go on the exposed metal. Trebor extra strong mints on my tongue dissolve slower than a Disco 1 though

[D Spares & Tyres]

Despite my recent escapades I agree! 306s and most PSA products took far longer to rot than others.

 

Most manufacturers have taken the French / Italian route of protecting the outer panels so they don't APPEAR to rot but rotting badly underneath

[Longblackcoat]

I have been owning cars for almost 35 years now and looking back, I'm completely unaware that during this period

there ever was a time when cars didn't rust. When exactly was that supposed to have taken place?

And which method unbeknownst to me did they employ to achieve this physically impossible phenomenon?

 

Neil Young, astonishing musician though he is, was simply wrong when he asserted that Rust Never Sleeps. Then again, he wrote that in 1979, when the prevalence of orange-stained steel was all-pervasive.

 

But moderns just don't seem to succumb to the lure of ferrous oxide; there will be exceptions, but my personal experience suggests that rust is pretty much a non-subject. The 1997 Audi A6 I had seemed to have no corrosion 15 years after manufacture, likewise my 2003 (died of explodey-enginitis 2016) Passat. The current MrsLBC mobile* is 11 years old and has not a speck of rust, even though it's an OMGMerc which all, as we know, should simply rust for fun. And my 55 plate Disco 3 had no corrosion other than a bit of crustiness on some underbody items. Bit early to tell, but no signs of tinworm on my daughter's 9 year old Panda nor my son's 11 year old Jazz.

 

The last car I had that was properly rotworthy was a 1999 E-Class Mercedes, though to be fair, that rusted like a bastard.

 

 

*For the avoidance of doubt, the current vehicle of Mrs LBC, not the vehicle of the current Mrs LBC. A nuance, perhaps, but an important one, should she ever be looking at this page.

[UltraWomble]

Stuff rusts, just not as badly as it did in the 70's ( and earlier).

Back then it wasnt uncommon for a car to need a tickle of the sparkly stick on its first MOT - now you would be getting to year 5 or 6 ( if its a Ford) and longer with other cars.

 

The Almera is 13 years old and the inner wings are very crusty. Will need some sparkly stick action soon.

The C8 is 10 and has galloping crusty suspension components, the body looks good though.

 

Meh.

 

I had a D plate Metro in 1989 that had shagged door bottoms through rust.

[cort16]

I lot of rot on modern stuff is down to repairs that have gone through the galvanised layers.

I'm not sure what Jaguar and Mazda excuse was I guess water was getting inside the sill somehow. There's not as much water traps in newer stuff a lot of the times the water the would normally sit on the inner wing or boot floor seems to get directly routed to the interior carpets(I'm looking at you VW)

[Bobthebeard]

The wardens on our static caravan site use a 1996 Corsa van for on site duties. Not been on the road since 2005.

No rust visible at all. Even on that top bit over the cab that always rusts. A diesel and has probably not been serviced for years, still chugging around though.

Verdict. Not been subject to winter salty roads.

[paulplom]

I had an F reg metro on finance as my 1st car. That had rusty roof gutters. Didn't matter though I stuffed it into a lamppost about 6 months later. 2 and half years of finance still to pay. I've never ticked a car on since.

[garethj]

One thing that's helped the corrosion resistance of cars in the last 20 years (disagreeing with Junkman) is testing.  In ye olden tymes there was salt spray testing and that's it.  But then came a bit more investigation and manufacturers can now do accelerated testing using chambers that better predict the actual lifespan.

 

Add to that the increased performance of paint technology despite it no longer being solvent based and that steel is also galvanised more often - it's all a good thing.

 

Of course there are still exceptions, for example if body panels are tested and chassis components are tested but a rust trap only occurs when they're bolted together then rust can still happen.  By the time the problem is found it's too late to fix it because development time is forever being shortened.  But generally cars rust a lot less than they did.

 

Most of my cars over the last 10 years have been from the 1990s and I've hardly ever had to do any welding on them.  A look underneath when I'm doing an oil change usually makes me think back to cars from the '70s I owned in the 1980s and '90s.  Back then every MoT was dreaded, but now cars look comparatively brand new under there.

[RoadworkUK]

Another Big Shaaaht Aaaaht for the pre '99 B5 Audi A4. Astonishing degree of corrosion resistance. Bodily unkillable and mechanically easy to fix.

 

It's an Audi, though.