Your tolerance for rust?

[dlundblad]

Have you ever seen the rear tailgate or hood of a ford expedition? Around here there are several that cannot be more than 5 years old running around with serious corrosion issues starting on those aluminum body panels.

My in laws have a 2004 Lincoln Navigator with just under 100k on it. Perfect condition body wise minus that tailgate.

The wife’s Volvo as well as my dads late 2001 Z71 Taho has aluminum hatches. Zero issues.

 

[celicaxx]

As long as it's not structural like a shock tower or near a control arm, to me it's kind of whatever. A rusty door replacement can be junkyarded or worst case Bondo'd over, same with a front fender. It gets a little more complex/bad with wheel well rust or rocker panel rust, though, as that's more arguably structural and can't be repaired to be 100% structurally sound without welding. Same with things like subframes, too, again, CAN be replaced in theory, in practice it's somewhat hard.

I paint houses for a living and actually painted my whole Sentra but ended up scrapping it due to structural rust, but if rust isn't structural I think it's perfectly fine to keep the car and just repaint it either touching up or just relegate the car to a Rustoleum rattlecan job

Depending on what you like to do even a full on Rustoleum job with rattlecans can look really good, and this was my own car last summer in progress. Sprayed with 325-500 grit sanded filler primer, some bondo in parts/etc and gloss white rattlecan Rustoleum. Time-wise it can be a lot especially when learning (knowing what I do now from this car it would take me about 20% of the time, since I had to correct so many of my own mistakes...) but basically my strategy was just going panel by panel and masking like that, as masking and prep took way more time than spraying, but you could mask and spray one side of a car like that in 2-4 hours, and by the end of a month or so have the whole car done and looking better than before. Not like a new car, but presentable.

I'd like to get a welder so I could fix structural stuff, too, but on some cars like this Sentra it's not worth it as it had no inherent value, it wasn't a rare sports car or anything of the sort, just an extremely abused sedan. Even the paint wasn't "worth it" in that sense, but it was a good car to learn on with no consequences. A good thing with bodywork too is that it doesn't physically prevent the car from moving, if your car looks halfway sanded in primer it looks like crap, but you can still drive it everywhere while you're working on it, whereas a mechanical repair ties up the ability of the car to drive if you fail in some manner. So that's why it definitely takes skill but I feel it's something more people should give a go.

I'm sure I'm definitely in the minority in this discussion.

 

[mattd]

While I hate rust, it's the way of life around here. I prefer to not have any at all, but a little scaling on the frame or subframe is acceptable. I try and be as diligent as possible keeping them washed off after a snow storm and Fluid Film what I can. My Tacoma has some scaling here and there on the frame, but is mostly solid. I try and run it through the touchless with the undercarriage spray after every salt event. If it's real bad I'll throw on a pair of overalls, crouch down on the concrete, and spray down the underside in the self serve bay before going through the touchless. It will still rust, but I can do my best to curb it.

You do know that fluid film and NH oil discourage undercarriage washes with oil under coating correct?

 

[supton]

The average age of cars is 11 years. That means fully half the cars on the road are over 11 years old.

Not quite correct. You are thinking of "median". Median is where half the population (of whatever is being compared or measured) is above, and half is below. Averages can be skewed, as already pointed out.

 

[supton]

Salt is so destructive to cars and infrastructure that some have bantered the idea of not using salt and closing communities after a snowfall. The huge economic loss from salt corrosion makes this thought meritable.

I had not heard of that idea before. I can't imagine life shutting down for an act of nature.

Oh wait, maybe I can...

Anyhow. It's not just for when it snows, it's the fact that freeze/thaw cycles just keeps icing things back over. It's not just our pace of life. The amount of salt dumped seems overboard but it's what we've come to accept and adapt to.

 

[supton]

I have no love for rust, but at the moment I don't care too much. Only when it's underneath. If anything I like a bit of rust and/or body damage, means I don't have to worry about washing and waxing that much. But I certainly don't care for it underneath.

I try to oil coat mine but a couple years ago I found that you really have to pour it into nooks and places you wouldn't think of. I removed some bolts on the car and they would not thread back in--apparently moisture could get behind that which I thought was sealed, and attack the threads all the same. It's a losing battle. And even then, who wants to put huge effort into a depreciating asset that could be totaled due to some other inattentive driver?