Rust Belt vs Sun Belt cars

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We who live in the rust belt deal with rusty cars and suspensions abused by potholes. What do vehicles in the Sunbelt suffer from?
 
Paint? Clearcoat is gone from every horizontal surface on my car. Some of the rubber gaskets look shot too.
 
I live in the Rust Belt and it's brutal for cars not rust proofed. Especially in the city I live in where the roads are really bad due to a lack of tax revenue (Lots of abandoned commercial properties due to the local economy collapsing years back).

I'm happy I have an SUV that can handle more rugged driving than say a compact car on these roads. If it's not the lack of maintenance budgets it's the winter with all the salt breaking up the asphalt with freeze/thaw cycles and leaving crater sized pot holes. We had a bus that bent its rim on one of these about 2 years back and it had to be towed away. I saw it coming home from work.

Paint isn't generally a concern in terms of sun damage here although if a car is never had wax applied to it the paint can look quite dull and flat but generally the clear coat seems to be ok. Some more than others as the vehicle gets on in years.
 
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Clear coat fails. None left on the roof and trunk of my Camry. The hood must have been repainted at one point because it looks fine.
 
Southeast side of the Sunbelt.

Road rash (sand, small stones, gravel, dirt). Ya there's heat/humidity but there's a lot of cloud cover comes with that so we get less sun damage.
 
In Phoenix here, blazing heart of the sunbelt. The sun can cause major paint fading, clearcoat failure, etc.. The head can lead to dash issues, interior plastic problems, leather issues, etc.. Frequent dust storms can lead to paint abrasion, sandblasting of the windshield.. Dryness can lead to rubber drying out and becoming brittle.

All of this, for the most part can be mitigated with proper care and maintenance. Proper cleaning and regular sealing/waxing will pretty much stop the paint issues in their tracks, as long as the paint was done right in the beginning.
 
My 99 Jeep has been in So Cal it's whole life. I have a few spots of Clear coat that has bubbled. Mainly on the plastic bumpers. And it was garaged most of the time. It sits out in the sun when I am at work.
 
I have bought a few old but desirable cars from AZ (one stepdaughter lives in Phoenix, another in Houston TX, they go looking if I find something really interesting), they all needed extensive interior work, new dashes, full paint jobs and window moldings.
Everything else was like brand new, underneath the fasteners still have the torque markings visible and zero rust, the drivetrains and suspensions are great. Perfect straight rust free bodies make a great foundation.

Stuff in the rust belt totally depends on how you use it, drive anything decent in winter you are really taking a lot of life out of it. That's what beaters and old trucks that can have a plow hung on them are for unless you lease or trade in every few years and couldn't care less.

No matter how well you coat them, how many times you wash them underneath they will rot, some worse than others but it gets em all in the end. Almost every job involves smoke wrenches, splitters, taps and die, LH drill bits, cutoff wheels, BFH and chisels, and god knows what else. The one thing that does not get much use are extractors, the fasteners are usually so badly rotted the extractors break off causing an even bigger headache.
Suspensions are shot to pieces, bushings blown out, bent wheels, rocker damage, exhaust rot off, oil pans and diff covers rot through, they are just ruined. Broken frames from rot are also common.
 
Bad paint,cracked dashes ,falling headliners and pitted glass are the big issues here. People tend to keep cars longer....20+ years or more sometimes. My truck is 31 yrs old.

You won't find many cars with non functional ac either. Rusty coolant and plugged up cooling systems are common since antifreeze is not needed.

I have never had to mess with a rusty bolt on a car
 
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I enjoy watching Youtube videos of people in California when they do a brake job, for example, and the rotors fall off the hub. My son and I changed the pads and rotors on my wife's '14 Fusion with quite possibly the factory-installed pads and rotors. We had to beat on the rotor with a rubber mallet and penetrating oil for a good while ! My wife came to the garage to ask why we were beating her car up ! At least on the 2nd wheel we hit it with penetrating spray as soon as we got the wheel off and let it soak/work while we removed the pads, caliper, etc. That one just took a couple of whacks - much easier !
 
Originally Posted by hallstevenson
I enjoy watching Youtube videos of people in California when they do a brake job, for example, and the rotors fall off the hub. My son and I changed the pads and rotors on my wife's '14 Fusion with quite possibly the factory-installed pads and rotors. We had to beat on the rotor with a rubber mallet and penetrating oil for a good while ! My wife came to the garage to ask why we were beating her car up ! At least on the 2nd wheel we hit it with penetrating spray as soon as we got the wheel off and let it soak/work while we removed the pads, caliper, etc. That one just took a couple of whacks - much easier !


One of the first things I do when I get a new vehicle when it's due for it's first tire rotation is take the wheel off and put on a thick style lubricant on the hub's etc. and then put the wheels back on rotated. My Santa Fe I didn't do this and drove it through the winter and come the spring I went to take the winter tires off and took all the nuts off and had to beat on the tire/rim with my foot to get it to release.
 
Just replaced the exterior window belt mouldings on my wife's 2011 Scion XB. San Antonio car, stored outside.

The mouldings had all cracked, and were literally melting black goo on the outside of the car. I was concerned that water was going to get in the car, so I changed them all out for $200 or so.

Also I am looking at her headlamps, which i keep waxed regularly. They are brown and hazy. New aftermarket ones are in order. I have messed with various 3m headlight cleaning kits and the effect only lasts six months or so.
 
Originally Posted by hallstevenson
I enjoy watching Youtube videos of people in California when they do a brake job, for example, and the rotors fall off the hub. My son and I changed the pads and rotors on my wife's '14 Fusion with quite possibly the factory-installed pads and rotors. We had to beat on the rotor with a rubber mallet and penetrating oil for a good while ! My wife came to the garage to ask why we were beating her car up ! At least on the 2nd wheel we hit it with penetrating spray as soon as we got the wheel off and let it soak/work while we removed the pads, caliper, etc. That one just took a couple of whacks - much easier !

Yup, it blows me away when I watch people work on cars in non-rust belt states. Everything looks like new! Not a hint or corrosion on anything, even the exhaust looks good.


The funniest is when they run into a little trouble removing something and complain about how they hate rust. If that gave you grief, just wait until you see the kinds of things people in the rust belt really have to deal with, like fasteners so rusted they lose their sides and half their mass and turn into shriveled tooth picks. Last time I ran into one of those on a catalytic converter I got the fastener off by just hitting it once with a claw hammer.
 
Synthetic components like rubber, plastic, urethane, vinyl, clear coat and base coat, adhesives, and natural materials like leather dry out crack, peel, and flake over time due to sun and heat damage. ECU's can also suffer damage from heat. Near the coast, rust is a problem with many older vehicles.
 
In northeast Vermont you have a beater for winter and a nice vehicle for the summer. If you drive the nice vehicle in the winter within 2-3 years you will have TWO Beaters.
 
South here. Pretty much what everyone else said. In my experience, southern cars last longer because the damage is mostly aesthetic. You can fix it or not, but it won't affect the longevity of the car much, there also isn't anything that you must do to keep your car from disintegrating. Cars from salt states just dissolve compared to ours. Our mechanical components also don't experience the drastic temperature changes from below freezing to operating temp. Here, it is frequently 90+F, barely 100 degrees from optimal oil temp, it is rare to find a modern car that can't deal with heat.
 
Originally Posted by hallstevenson
I enjoy watching Youtube videos of people in California when they do a brake job, for example, and the rotors fall off the hub. My son and I changed the pads and rotors on my wife's '14 Fusion with quite possibly the factory-installed pads and rotors. We had to beat on the rotor with a rubber mallet and penetrating oil for a good while ! My wife came to the garage to ask why we were beating her car up ! At least on the 2nd wheel we hit it with penetrating spray as soon as we got the wheel off and let it soak/work while we removed the pads, caliper, etc. That one just took a couple of whacks - much easier !


Its not uncommon on older Ford F150 and Expeditions to have to cut the rotors off with a Sawzall and split the last bit with an air chisel in this area of the country.
We also get many false ABS lights from rust pieces from the backing plate getting on the pick up. Wait till you try removing the sensors when they are finally squashed till they fail from rust, that can be a real fun experience.
 
I'd take a sunbelt car over a rust belt car any day. Sunbelt cars suffer from faded paint, failed clear coat, the vinyl, rubber, and leather takes a beating from the sun. But take a garaged sunbelt car, it could be a gem. Garaged rust belt cars can have issues too.
 
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