@same, you are stating the obvious strategies used but it isn’t he reason why there has been rust prevention measures. In many cases it is all paper mâché and beautification. Frames still rust at alarming rates in trucks, window sills and frames still bubble in some cars in just 5 to 6 years and rust continues to rear it’s head in all areas not directly attributed to mandates. Everything you mentioned is true, yet rust proofing in cars remained stagnant for decades till mandates forced the issue. Rust proofing aftermarket hoaxes were the norm.
Look under neath any of those so called plastic clad cars and you will still find hangers that are rusted. The real proof to my assertions are pick up trucks which were exempt from many mandates. Truck frames rust and within the 7 to 8 year range, true for many years as it is now, and doors and quarters are bubbling. I do to get there have been great strides but it has not been at the initiative of car makers; it has been as a response to mandates for pollution, mileage and safety. Even aluminum body panels which Ford trucks and Toyota is scheduled to follow suit is a response to mileage requirements first. Trucks cannot go the hybrid route yet still must meet mileage standards. This will be the first legitimate effort Ford has made to curb rust in their trucks other them tempory use of galvanizing. The fact remains, these efforts are superfluous to adding small quantities of chromium to the present steel used in bodies which they cold have done years ago to make them last years long; all done for minimal costs. They refuse to do it because rust pays and only govt. mandates and public pressure for safety has indirectly affected it.
I am a sailor. Common aluminum stock without preparation will corrode but at a much lower rate in the presence of whater. Earlier cars had greater body life expectancy because of thicker metals and the non use of salt. You forget the cars of the sixties at the end of the marvelouse auto technolog that rusted in just a few years. The technology had nothing to do with preventing rust. Sorry. Anything the auto company does to prevent rust is a direct result of mandates and subsequent market pressures to follow those mandates. Safety being the big one. FORD AND ALUMINUM Bodies IS A PERFECT EXAMPLE.
I believe it’s market forces that forced auto manufacturers to develop more rust resistant vehicles. When the riceburners invaded in the '70s they brought with them a well deserved reputation for rusting. Making cars more rust resistant became a competitive advantage. That, plus the (perhaps unintended) consequences of rapidly advancing manufacturing technologies during that period reduced the rust problem tremendously. Some vehicles, Toyota pickups for one, have stumbled along the way, but by and large cars take far longer to develop significant rust than they used to.
Most manufacturers have warranties against rust perforation for about 6 years. That’s it ! Rust perforation is the end game. Car inner bodies begin rusting shortly after they are exposed to moisture, soon after they are made and often before they are sold. Plastic cladding and other strategies are designed to HIDE not prevent rust . That is the market pressure, to prevent you from seeing the rust. Open up any untreated car more then a few years old by either taking off inner trim panels or through access holes. You WILL see rust between the body panels in seems of fenders, rockers, rear quarters on nearly all cars exposed to moisture.
This is why rust seems to suddenly appear every where at once. It has been rust for years since new to get to that point. The only places where rust is actually curtailed, is where pollution and safety mandates have required a time element and manufacturers respond with the use of stainless steel and composites and hardened steel in reinforced areas where structural integrity for safety is mandated. Look at your own car. if there is any rust around a drain hole, there is many times that inside…just waiting to start bubbling through. It is there.
Mine is nine years old and has no significant rust. And I spend enough time under the car (as recently as yesterday) checking for this stuff. Between spending time under the car and, having had the cladding off, if it were beginning to rust I’d know. Heck, I’ve even gutted the interior from the B pillars back and checked INSIDE! I did that as a part of a soundproofing effort a few years ago. My '79 Toyota was rotting significantly at nine years old. My 72 Vega was rotting at four years old.
I stand by my statement that today’s cars resist rust far better than the cars of the '60s and '70s… and even '80s. And I stand by my statement that the advances were driven by market forces and new technologies and not government mandates.
Very early cars have little rust because they have wood framing covered in hammered aluminum panels. Even the early Model T (available in several colors) had aluminum bodywork. It was a good material, easy to work by hand with simple presses, paints well, and is decently strong. Luxury car bodies (made separately from the chassis by a coach builder) were still mostly aluminum into the thirties, when that custom coach building tradition largely died out, with a few becoming in-house body design or manufacturing departments, like Fisher at GM.
"Very early cars have little rust because they have wood framing covered in hammered aluminum panels"
Let’s not forget that many luxury cars of the '20s & early '30s had bodies constructed of fabric stretched over wood framing–similar to the way that early aircraft were built.
Apparently, in addition to saving a lot of weight, fabric bodies also resulted in fewer squeaks from the body. However, the result of a collision was…not pretty.
And on road or official inspections done by states where rust is a determining factor in making road worthy cars had nothing to do with hiding the appearance of rusting ? . If there were no state inspections and govt. mandates, you would be driving modern versions of rusted Vegas doing yearly trips to Midas for fake rust proofing and new mufflers and having perpetual body work done.
When you say your car has no significant rust, it has ten (and much more) times more then you can see and just that little rust means it’s worth thousands less to any dealer. Count on it. For years, no provision was made for drainage to encourage rust. It was like every car was made for Texas or California. We still live a dream world that car makers are actually believable in rust proofing efforts when they do the bare minimum to get by mandates and regulations. Crash test mandates in the last decade or two are one of the most significant factors in improving body integrity which indirectly affects rust prevention measures in cars. BIG reason…not benevolence ! Watch. Ford will tout aluminum bodies as their great contribution to rust prevention when weight savings and mileage was the real reason and not market pressure…they are already the most widely sold vehicle. Govt. mandates affected that move, not market pressures.
Dag, just as in '72 I was not driving a modern version of the Model T, I would also not now be driving a modern version of the rusted Vega. While some mandates have pushed technology, the '70s were an example of the effects of most government mandates… the '70s were an industry disaster. The industry progress best by its own hand and due to market forces. All industries do, all industries always have, all industries always will.
I’ll make a deal with you. You don’t try to tell me about my car and I won’t try to tell you about your car. Then neither of us will drag this debate into the realm of the personal. We’re never going to agree on this, so let’s not drag the debate down.
I absolutely agree that mandates are the impetus behind Ford’s move to aluminum. Nobody disputes that, including Ford. Done well, it could be great. Done poorly, it’ll be another boondoggle. I hope they do it right.
You were repeating only your own assumptions, not anything obvious or based on actual visual evaluation. Let’s leave it alone. Let’s not ruin a good thread.
You are under the assumption I am picking on you and your car. It has nothing to do with that what so ever. We are taking about things in older cars we would like to see again…we are not seeing rust again because it is hidden. It has nothing to do with individuals, it’s a fact in all cars. Under any car/truck we will see a painted frame or frame members on unibodies. If it has just been painted, it begins to show "surface rust " in just months. That is happening inside of all car body panels to greater and lesser extents depending upon it’s environment. The rust on the other side “is” surface rust we cannot see until it eats it’s way through to the other side, bubbles the paint and all the metal needs to be replaced because many times what you see on one side is on the other.
When my relatives who are car dealers (6) dealerships and counting, all take cars in trade in, they look for indicators to decide on the car values. They use these indicators to make a judgement of it’s value. One of them is body damage. A very little "apparent"rust can drop the trade in value by thousands as even an indicator in one area is also an indicator of rust in another, including the back side of body panels. People wonder why the their trade ins are worth so little when there appears to be so little body rust. It’s not rocket science, it’s not personal, it’s fact and has everything to do with how much older cars have in common with newer ones. I apologize to people who are sensitive to this fact but it is true. I was taken aback too 30 pus years ago by a good friend who had cars thirty years old with no rust. Like all Car “illnesses” recognizing and not denying was important for me to do something about it. It wasn’t personal and we are close friends still and I am thankful for that advice. No car is immune to it, modern ones too, unless you live in a place it never rains, you never drive through puddles and the air is dry all year round.
@mountainbike Mandatory rust protection came into being in 1976/77 as a result of the “rusty Ford” scandal. A guy by the name of Phil Edmonston, an ex-marine, living in Canada took on Ford with a class action lawsuit and in the processs forced the Canadian government to establish rust perforation regs, which were then exapanded to the USA.
I had one of those Ford Granadas that had the first half hearted application of coated rocker panels and the first anti corrosion upgrade. It was better than nothing and just made the 5 year warranty without perforations. Ziebart did a lot of business coating the interior of body panels and the floors with undercoating. The new standards eventually made them go into other things since thte coating part of the buseness dried up.
Without this legislation, I believe we would still have poor rust protection. But the Japanese would have been the first to do it voluntarily.
In the mid 70s Detroit was opposed to any government regs and blamed the rust on road salt. Later, in fact, they applied rust protection to Pintos in all areas of the US except the West coast. This was part of their risk calculation.
I hear you @Docnick
One friend is Toyota dealer manager and somewhat jokingly, as he always responses well to that, I remind him that Toyotas are not as good a car company as they like everyone to think, especially on rust proofing. They do what they have to to be perceived to be better at it. They sometimes get caught with their Corolla rusted rocker panels and their Tacoma frames. They just want to remain better in the minds of their customers. He responds with…“well, yes, what’s your point ?” For that reason, Toyota stays behind introducing too much new technology to keep things in perspective for the buyer.
My cousin who was a service manager for and part owner for a half dozen dealerships freely admitted that making a rust free car was not good for buyer perception at times. It’s acceptable to see a rusted out Subaru broken down mechanically on the side of the road but it isn’t if it’s rust free and new looking. Engineering, including rust proofing is about perception as it is about actually doing it. Some foreign car makers are just better at the timing aspect between mechanics, expectations including regulations and body integrity.
I can find no reference to factory, aluminum bodied Model Ts being produced except for 4 cars made in the 1920s to explore the use of aluminum bodies. That does not mean that many Model Ts didn’t wind up with aluminum bodies. The car was offered to commercial interests to make whatever you wanted.
As far as aluminum not corroding, I won’t buy a car with aluminum wheels because after 6 0r 7 years here they start leaking air because of salt eating away at the bead area. Car bodies here last 7-12 years with the determining factor being how much the car is driven in the winter and where it is parked. If it has to be parked on the street during the day, the drivers side gets a salt bath all day and will rust much quicker than the pass side.
In the 50s 60s and 70s we hat cars that were covered in rust in 3 years. My father in law had to have his 53 Plymouth repainted in 56 because or rust and traded it in in 58 because of holes all over the body. There was a reason car loans were only 3 years back then.
I just recently revisited this thread. Some comments.
Push button shifters- Had several, loved them. My 56 Desoto would not engage revers if you were moving more than5 mph. They were cable operated. The federal government outlawed them in 1965 when they insisted that all shifter had to go P_R_N_D_L.
Servel- We used to get a cabin in Alleganey State Park every year ( yes the spelling is correct ) and some of the cabins there had wood stoves for cooking and heat but gas refrigerators into the 1970s.
My own nominations, My 1972,8 hp Airens Snowblower and My 1978 International Cub riding mower.Both lack any modern safety features which make them so easy to use. If you want to start either one and let it go through a building or yourself neither machine will argue with you.
Both are still what I depend on.
“In the 50s 60s and 70s we hat cars that were covered in rust in 3 years. My father in law had to have his 53 Plymouth repainted in 56 because or rust and traded it in in 58 because of holes all over the body.”
I recall those days very well, and as I mentioned in a different thread, I recall my mother soaking some fiberglass strips and using them to patch the very badly rotted rocker panels on our '55 Plymouth. After they dried & hardened, it was my job to sand them and to do a quick & dirty paint job with a spray can.
Yesterday, I saw a VW Golf with PA license plates, and its rocker panels were as badly rotted as those on our old Plymouth. The difference, of course, is that our Plymouth had a frame, and the VW is of unitized construction. So, I wonder whether that VW–which couldn’t have been more than 5 or 6 years old–is still structurally sound. If there is that much visible rust…how much more rust-- in very vital chassis areas–is not visible?
Personally, I wouldn’t want to have to depend on the structural integrity of that VW in the event of a collision.
As far as rust goes, I really think it depended on the model and manufacturer. My 80’s era Buick Rivieras had galvanized sheet metal panels. Couldn’t tell you how much but at least the 1/4 panels and rockers. Plus stainless steel exhaust. My 80’s Park Ave. though had standard panels and exhaust. Same manufacturer and era but one was a premium model. I don’t remember any rust issues on our 60’s Merc, or Chevys but they weren’t older than five years but had no special rust proofing. My 59 Pontiac did have the standard front fender rusting that was common but the car was ten years old in Minnesota and South Dakota. Lots of rust on my VW though in the fenders and the bumper brackets and no easy way to fix it. Some models were just worse than others, but the rust was mainly on the sheet metal not the framing or floor panels unless 30 years old.
My 1965 Dodge Dart became unsafe to drive with 154,000 miles on it. The front sub frame and floor were so rusted out that the body would flex when traversing diagonal railway tracks and the steering would go off in another direction. I was afraid also that a panic braking effort would make the front wheels tuck under and collapse the whole car.
@oldtimer11
Absolutely miss my two stroke mower self propelled mower with one speed. I don’t like the fancy one with a four stroke that weighs a lot more with variable speeds I don’t need or trust. The two stroke never bogged down and even thought wasn’t as efficient, it still mowed the lawn on one filling and started within a couple of pulls for 18 years. It is semi retired to my sons tiny lawn in a Mass developement.
Also miss the two stoke kicker for my sailboat…but it did leave an oil film on the water. Don’t mind giving that up.