A water hose and an oil bath does wonders,seen so much salt on the engine it pits the aluminum,the more snow,the better DOT does thier job= more rust,but newer cars are a degree better then the old ones IMO,the owner has to do thier part too-Kevin
Kevin
Have driven in Maine winters for over 50 years. Started maintaining my cars for rust 37 years ago. In that time I have never had one spect of rust ANYWHERE on the body panels on any car I have ever owned and maintained between 10 and twenty years old. Every car I ever traded after I started doing this, including old Mazda PUs, Toyota trucks, Subarus, Sidekicks, Fords, Civics etc…all the typical rust buckets of the era…totally rust free for that time. Have bought several that were already 5 plus years old. If they had no rust showng when I bought t them, they had none when I sold them many years later. They all sold for what I asked which was equal to dealer asking prices. Why? Because a 10 to 15 year old car that looks new and is rust free and in better shape then dealer lot cars the same year and commanded good money still. BTW, they get washed no more then 6 times per year.
No after market rust proofing comes close to the results my friends, others and I who do this. We see cars that get after market one time treatments around here. They still rust… and the typical non believers always guess my cars are just several years old when the are 10 to 15. Btw, just saw my 94 Tacoma the other day owned by a guy in my same town which I traded in back in 2004. I was startled to see it. The truck body, as that’s all I saw, was still rust free !
You can believe what you want Dag. But I’ve seen vehicles with properly applied rust proofing lasting many many years longer then the same make/model/year without. Todays cars with factory applied rust proofing - again are lasting many many years longer then the cars of the 70’s. So it DOES work.
Consumer Reports in recent years has been saying they think factory rustproofing has gotten so good that rust rarely gets reported as a problem on their annual surveys. Of course they are only rating newer used cars, not the 15 and 20 you cars that are most likely to have problems. Still, that’s a big improvement if hardly any cars have serious rust issues in their first ten years. Things are also changing as the population is moving South and West, away from severe weather and salted roads. Rust is never going good to be a problem for over half the population because of where they live. Maybe 20 percent are in areas with the greatest chance of rust. Car Talk’s fans seem to be most numerous in the Northeast, so reading these forums there is a lot of discussion of rust and Winter tires. Sometimes I wish more posters would tell us where they live, as so much advice could be more usefully tailored to the poster’s environment.
@Dagosa,you have made a disciple of me-could you kindly recapitulate,your rust proofing regime?
(I’m not OCD on washing vehicles either,some Folks wax and buff the topside and never throw a hose on the chassis)-Kevin
Car Talk's fans seem to be most numerous in the Northeast
Because there’s where they started. They were local in Boston long before they went national.
The old cars with all the vents had screens on all of them and we used to keep the windows rolled up at highway speed, these cars would also expel air out the back. It was called flow-thru ventilation.
We had no freeways, mostly two lane roads through forests in Northwestern PA and Southwestern NY.
@MikeInNH
Just to be clear. It does extend the time rust shows and how much depends upon a variety of factors including the location and the other care it gets and the quality of workmanship. But, by your own admission, it still rusts eventually and once applied, you are committed to that one application and can do nothing more to extend it. The difference is, the life expectancy of cars maintained for rust is completely open ended.