How do we feel about rust?

[spartacus]

"Lanciaman"

"...lifetime rust paranoia..."

 

[beko1987]

9 hours ago, Talbot said:

Is that new?  I thought that thing was fairly grot-free.

Looks fairly new, it's 2 small patches of bubbling under the paint on the drivers front wing. Wasn't mentioned on the mot (unsurprisingly), nor anything else

Utter basic plan is to have the wing off in spring and clean the body mounts then just put the wing back on. Who knows, I might use my painting practise (from vacuums) on it and touch it in... 

Was more just wondering how far the op wanted to go. I've seen undercarriage pressure washer lances, they've always looked fun

[Sir Chocolate Teapot]

I have to admit that rust in my cars depresses me a little, i strongly believe that a twice a month especially during winter pressure wash of wheel arch lips and underbody goes a long way to keeping rust at bay . special attention and cold dirty fingers needed to keeping clean the inside lips of wheel arches. NOT keeping wet car in garage also helps.

Strangely i very rarely clean or polish the outside of cars as i don't really care how they look on the outside. Usually give a good clean and polish once a year. 

[jon.k]

Friends of mine bought a Jazz and then scraped the arch a couple of weeks later. Took it to a body shop  who told them someone had already scraped it and it was rusting below the blow over. They decided to ring the garage to complain that they’d been sold a rusty car, but we’re in a tricky position because they’d only found out because they scraped it.  The woman who spoke to them on the phone said “just bring it back and we’ll have a look. The jazzes do tend to go rusty after they’ve been scraped by old drivers”. Umm, about that...  I think they bought it back at a cheap price  and sold them something else. 

[Jazoli]

12 hours ago, Lanciaman said:

I firmly believe the French stuff is best for rust resistance. 

I have to agree with this, I hate rusty cars and won't buy one with any visible corrosion, I can fix mechanical bits but rust is always messy and expensive.

[Talbot]

For me it depends a lot on where the rust is.

Floorpan?  Fixable and not visible.  No problems.  Separate Chassis?  Even easier.

Sills?  Fixable and can be blacked over.  Not too much of an issue.

Bolt-on Front wings?  Sack them off and fit replacements.  Pricey, but achievable.

Rear arches / roof / other part of the monocoque that needs delicate repair and will be visible.  Ah bollocks.

[NorfolkNWeigh]

1 hour ago, beko1987 said:

 

Was more just wondering how far the op wanted to go. I've seen undercarriage pressure washer lances, they've always looked fun

Great fun, had a hotel room with one of those Jap toilets , that had one fitted. 

[tul66]

14 hours ago, Lanciaman said:

Recently bought a 2008 Honda Jazz.  Face-lift car.  Nice top spec and full honda history.  £2k.  Bought mostly for in laws being here but a standby a good idea. However being a blind bastard missed that it's had the rear arches blown over so no doubt the old rust will come through in the next few weeks. 

My first car decades ago was a fiat 131 supermirafiori. This has left me with a lifetime rust paranoia.   Now the jazz is spot on mechanically.  And is great to jump in and do short trips. In a way I don't care if the arches rust and I just treat them and do some stevie wonder paint every so often.   I actually like the car.   But should I just punt ASAP? Or is life too short to care? It's 12 years old and all cars rust.  So just use it as, a cheap car and get on with it. 

What's the AS consensus? 

Jesus Lindsay, how could you! My mum used to have one but sold it because "only old folk drive them"; she's 75...................

[PhilA]

13 hours ago, leanycan said:

Have you seen some Mazda 3's of that age... yikes. 

When my parents started looking for a new car, they shortlisted the Mazda 3; I warned my old man of the two major foibles of the design- first being the stupidly long oil change interval and the second that they like to rot badly.

They bought a nice used example and when they got it home my old man took to the wheel arches with a hose and brush. He said he removed probably two generous handfuls of mud from the nooks and crannies between the plastic inner arch liner and the metal lip, of which the inside edge was very thin and not very generous with paint.

He then waxoyled the shit out of it.

They booked it in when the oil started to change color at their local Mazda dealer and had them do a quick inspection and oil/filter change. 

He questioned the mechanic doing the work, who agreed the car has some bad design points that collect and hold mud, which then also get wet every time it rains, driven or not.

He also agreed on their opinion of mechanical maintenance.

So, it's a combination of economically applied paint and shitty design for Mazda. Treat it like it was made by BL, wash the thing thoroughly and the perpetually wet areas on the car dry out and the progression of rot can be slowed significantly.

 

So yeah, I'll let you know if a non rusty, non knackered piston rings Mazda 3 comes up for sale cheap...

 

Phil

[Lanciaman]

36 minutes ago, tul66 said:

Jesus Lindsay, how could you! My mum used to have one but sold it because "only old folk drive them"; she's 75...................

The need for reliability outweighs the need to be cool! 

[juular]

Of all of the vehicles I've owned regardless of their reputation for rust, all of the major problems have been caused by tyre fitters lifting the car in the wrong place or without jacking pads.

Folded over sill pinch seams and damaged chassis box sections have been present on pretty much everything I've owned. Left untreated they can kill a car. 

Even on the vivaro which was galvanised, the jacking points has been damaged by a jack to the point the galvanising was useless and they just rotted right through. 

[chodweaver]

Not a big seller in the first place, many, many XMs have gone over the bridge for the same reason, though the jacking points on the sills are of the stupidest design. Even the earlier, better built and more galvanised ones lost their sills very quickly once the daft seams had been crumpled flat by a tyre fitter...

[Marm Toastsmith]

In a way I actually quite like a little bit of rust. Not as much as I like a creased panel but hey. Cosmetic issues are OK in my book. Anything that gets you a cheaper vehicle without compromising on reliability has to be a good thing. If someone has hung on to a rusty car it's probably a goodun.

Spending out on welding is no fun obviously but this Jazz doesn't sound like it's in that category.

[Asimo]

I hate rust  and after 5 years with a plastic bodied car and 5 years with an old aluminium car it is hard to want to spend money on old rust. 
 But after considering A2 & A8, really don’t want an Audi.  I can’t fit in an Elise / VX220 & can’t afford an NSX. Although X350 Jaguars have much to commend them I just do not want to sit in that vile “golf-club lounge” interior.

So a rotting crispy future is mine. Boo.

 

[chaseracer]

19 hours ago, richardmorris said:

The Mercedes’s bubbling again on the rear arches. I’m deciding whether to ignore for another year or so and get rid of it or spend £4000+ on a full bare metal respray and repair. 

This is AS.  What you need to do is spend four bags on restoring it THEN sell.

Do keep up, Rich...

😉

[sierraman]

As @Talbot said, about if light rust here and there where it can be rectified easily is ok, problem is it’s rarely that simple, I’ve seen a lot of cars corroded in areas that could theoretically be fixed but it would be a massive ball ache, requiring fuel tanks dropping (Focus trailing arm mounts), re fabricating suspension mounts from scratch (Corsa B rear spring mounts) or paper thin steel with a complex curve that’s impossible to weld without distortion (Ka fuel filler). Floorpans rarely rot on cars these days. 

Cosmetic work like arches are a ball ache as it’s not the welding but the paintwork after that shows it up. Coupled with the fact bodywork is almost never done properly on a DIY basis - filler over paint etc. It costs big money to do bodywork properly and it’s no guarantee it won’t be through again in 2 years. I had a Mk2 Mondeo a while back, it had had new sills fitted by a body shop before I bought it, they’d been done correctly with the old sill removed and new sills welded on and a proper body shop paint job, off hand don’t know what the cost was but I’m thinking it was a £1000 plus. Anyway, 3 years later the sills were going again. I don’t know if that’s because they’d fitted crappy Hadrian panels sills or what but it was starting to go. A lot of money for someone to spend for 3 years... wasn’t my problem that said I’d paid £500 on one of the last genuinely (for a while!!!) rust free Mk2s. 

[UltraWomble]

Titting about with the C3 the other day trying to work out how the fans have been nobbled by the garage and noticed the front cross member is crispy - cant be faffed with it right now, but def one for the nicer weather to fettle.

Car is just under 10 years old.

[HMC]

I’ve got a wheelarch fetish where every car I buy gets its wheelarches jet washed immediately and I run my hand around the arch lip after to get rid of any remaining crud. I’m glad to see the novichok (newcomer) lada is good in this respect, although the sill to rear inner arch join is notable by its absence, bilaterally. Can’t have it all.

[HMC]

I’m a bit more laid back about it than I used to be, I’d throughly rustproof a car After buying it, and then sell it after 3 months.

Some flawed logic there.

[Split_Pin]

4 hours ago, HMC said:

I’ve got a wheelarch fetish where every car I buy gets its wheelarches jet washed immediately and I run my hand around the arch lip after to get rid of any remaining crud. I’m glad to see the novichok (newcomer) lada is good in this respect, although the sill to rear inner arch join is notable by its absence, bilaterally. Can’t have it all.

Same here. It's like picking oose from between your toes. Leaving it there is just not an option.

[Spiny Norman]

So long as it's not 1970s Vauxhall Victor grade rust where the rear axle is held onto the body by nothing more than the propshaft and some baler twine like the one my Dad had in 1980 I can't say I'm unduly worried.
So long as you make them out of metal and drive them in a cold, damp part of the world where they throw a million tons of salt on the roads every winter, any car is going to rust eventually.

 I dare say if I ever spent £££thousands on a car and discovered holes in the floor I wouldn't be too impressed but at the price  level I buy at I don't care.  I've bought cars that have had actual holes in the wings, covered them with Duck tape and got a year out of them, which felt like a WIN for £300.
 

[doubleyeller]

Recently had to tell a customer that there was nothing economically to be done on a 7 year old Ka2......

He took it rather well all things considered and sold it to another customer of mine......

Awkward!

[EightMegs]

I went looking at a lovely 1959 Singer Gazelle only to find the floor had actually fully detached on the passenger side. That was a pass for me.