I returned last week from a very nice summer vacation to the upper Midwest, which is often beautiful this time of year, especially when you are coming there from southeast Texas. Texas had had a pretty decent summer (for Texas) until the last couple of weeks when it finally went over 100 humid degrees Fahrenheit, making it really fortunate I got to hang out up north where the highs were in the 70’s.
For the car spotter, the beautiful climes did not hide a harbinger of the brutal winter to come. Everywhere I looked, I saw that eternal enemy of the automobile: Rust! I thought I would take the opportunity here to show some ugly cars and share some thoughts on this inevitable scourge.
We spent a little over a week in Iowa and Minnesota, visiting family. The trip also provided me with subjects for three other planned articles which I will be working on over the next month or two. All the pictures used in the article here were taken by me. I’m sure there are more dramatic rust porn photos available on the internet, but in the interest of authenticity, these are all parked cars encountered by me randomly over a few days. The Dodge Grand Caravan shown above belongs to my wife’s cousin.
I saw quite a few third and fourth generation Chrysler minivans, and they all looked very rusty. It seems they will keep running until the body disappears. To those of you from this part of the U.S., you see this every day. Maybe you are jealous of those of us for whom this level of rust is exotic. For me, rust is my old nemesis.
I spent most of my childhood in Indiana and Texas, then we moved to Vermont during high school. New England is just as rust-generating as the Midwest and all the cars I owned through high school had advanced degrees of rot. In the 80’s, any vehicle that had spent a few winters driving there showed at least a little bit of rust. By the time you got down to the well-used, low-budget 70’s-mobiles I could afford, perforated sheetmetal was a given.
This is my 76 Buick Estate Wagon, which I bought my senior year. Someday I may do a COAL on it. I liked the car a lot, but rust was a big problem. The bottom of the driver door lost enough metal that it wouldn’t hold the rocker trim anymore and packing tape was used to keep the cold drafts and water out of the door. The front fenders had been replaced by the previous owner, because apparently they were that bad. The exhaust pipe fell out once and another time the gas tank sprang a leak.
After high school, my family moved to Fountain Hills, Arizona (Phoenix area) and I took the wagon with me. It was certainly a horse of a different color there. A brown horse. I had some brake work done on it shortly after we moved and the mechanic charged me extra because it took him so long to get the bolts loose. I think he had an anxiety attack because he had never worked on such a rusty car. In his words, “My God, there is rust EVERYWHERE!”
Rusty rear truck fenders are a Minnesota staple. Early on, perhaps the cladding just falls off.
I got a couple of years out of the wagon in Arizona. The oxidation process had been arrested, but the damage was just too great. It was my last rusty car, because I have since become a complete rust snob. I won’t buy a car that has any rust on the body. Moreover, I won’t even buy a car that has much surface rust on the chassis. Arizona spoiled me. I moved to Houston, Texas where rust, while still minimal, is not quite as rare. One of my favorite cars in Texas developed a rust spot on the body. I sold it.
When it’s worse, the wheel opening gets noticeably bigger
This summer’s trip got me thinking about rust again. Why do I hate it so?
The quick and obvious answer is that I don’t like it on my cars because it’s unattractive and if it’s bad enough, it can interfere with the function of the car. I think, for me at least, it goes deeper than that.
Eventually the fender just looks like a monster took a bite out of it
We Curbside Classic readers love the good curbside find, that old or rare car that defied statistics to be parked in front of you now. Through good luck, light use or exceptional care it survived past the normal lifetime of its peers. If it is old enough or nice enough or desirable enough, it may have reached the tipping point where its odds of surviving in perpetuity are excellent. It will always be able to find a home with someone who values it enough to keep it going.
This Focus looked pretty nice except for the creeping line of brown taking over the underside.
If you have some affection for your cars the way most of us do, you kind of hope that your car will be one of those survivors someday. Personally, I have always bought the nicest cars I could find for my budget and taken good care of them. When the time comes to sell them in a few years, I never have trouble getting a buyer because they are obviously well cared for. Later when I lay in the grass and watch the clouds, I imagine that the future owners will be the same as me and the car will live on indefinitely until I run into it on the street in 20 years and can’t believe how I am so much older and the car has somehow stayed the same.
This Grand Prix is much further along. There used to be a rocker panel under there!
That’s the dream, anyway. What I hate about rust is that it makes that dream not even a possibility. My cars become a companion in life and I tend to forget that they are fundamentally disposable appliances. When rust begins, it makes the disposable quality inevitable and undeniable. Nobody wants to keep a rusty car long-term. Almost anything with rust is guaranteed to hit the junkyard as soon as the mechanical repair costs exceed the value of the vehicle.
In addition to the rocker rust, this Cavalier sports a nice hole in the door.
Sure, nowadays lots of cars from the 50’s and 60’s turn up with substantial body rot and get restored or turned into restomods, if they are lucky enough to be a coupe, convertible, muscle car or even the right pickup truck. I can’t think of very many cars from the 1980’s to today that would ever be considered worth putting hundreds, or even dozens, of man hours of rust repair into (on top of all the other needed restoration).
Being the perfect winter vehicle, it’s surprising this Blazer isn’t in worse shape.
On an even deeper level, I think perhaps rust reminds us of our own mortality. Sure, we know cars are disposable but our bodies are, too, when we think about it. In fact, with enough care a car can live longer than a person. Car rust is sometimes called cancer, and when a car gets it bad, it is terminal. Sadly, much like people. When you see that rust creeping up the rocker panels, you are reminded that nothing lasts forever in this mortal coil. At least if you think morbid thoughts like me!
Not much left of this poor Yukon’s rear fender!
So, I love Minnesota. It’s pleasant in the summer and even in the winter it has a stark beauty. But I do not like the automotive landscape because everywhere you look are doomed cars!
I noticed that all the rusty examples I shot were American models. Perhaps some readers from the region would have an educated opinion on why that was the case. Random or pattern?
You might not recognize the author name. I realized I’ve been writing articles for long enough here that I might as well use my actual name!
Yawn. Just another day in Indiana. Seriously, I am deeply, deeply jealous of you folks who live in places where body rust is the exception and not the rule. Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan are the worst places in the midwest, though I am sure there are places just as bad in the northeast.
What gripes me is rocker panels. Even when I was a kid and bad rust was the rule on a 7-8 year old car, the rocker panels were immune. Automakers had seen those as a trouble spot and began galvanizing them by the early 60s (everywhere but Studebaker, it seems). By the early 80s they told us they were really getting serious – Chrysler went so far as to galvanize the whole lower body on L bodies, K cars and such. Those cars still look good today, mostly.
I remember the Ford Aerostar and Explorer as the first real rusters I had seen in a long time. I guess rust protection is one of the costs that got cut as things got tight. All American pickups have been bad.
FWIW the 4th gen Chrysler minivans are *substantially* worse rusters than the 3rd gen (which have several more years on the salty roads than the newer ones.) The 5th gen was an improvement there, those have withstood the elements quite well.
People bemoan the use of black plastic rocker panels, but the reality is that in ten years they’ll just suffer from some fading at worst, which is far preferable to rust.
Those are rocker panel covers. Actual metal rocker panel may or may not be hidden underneath.
Our ’90 Civic Wagon was like this. Plastic rocker covers nicely hid the totally rotted out metal underneath.
True enough JP, but I am still deeply jealous of you because at least you live in the same country as the rust free cars.
If you really wanted one, all you’d have to do is rent a U-haul and a trailer, drive to Texas and get one. Your government makes me jump through all sorts of hoops to do that.
And once again, I’ll put in a plug for Krown rustproofing. Our 2001 Focus had not one bit of rocker rust when we sold it in 2017
Having lived in NYC for many years and street-parking my E30, it developed some minor rust on the rockers, despite my Irv Gordon-emulating winter care. One was replaced after an accident; the other pitted through but hasn’t changed since I moved to CA. I was so surprised and relieved when I took it in for service and a diff overhaul (LSD 3.73) that my mechanic said there wasn’t anything but surface rust and that it looked great underneath, aside from the exhaust hangers l. I’m chalking it up to underbody washes and not fixing certain leaks, cos for a long time it was always covered with an oil slick. I’ve seen much worse rust on e30s, though. One day I’ll grind out that one remaining rust spot but until then…
My brother-in-law had a Subaru BRAT. Correction, he LOVED a Subaru BRAT. I could see why. It was compact, ” tossable” and practical. You could throw stuff in the bed that you didn’t want inside. Yes, there were limits on size and weight but for the very great majority of the time, the BRAT was easily able to handle the load. And it had all-wheel drive, an advantage where he lives in Pennsylvania.
And there lies the rub. Pennsylvania, where the State mineral is rock salt. The underbody of that BRAT rusted twice as fast as the body, and the body had rust-through holes in it. One day, pulling out from a toll gate on the PA Turnpike, the entire rear axle pulled out from the thoroughly perforated chassis. The mechanicals were fine but there was literally nothing left to drive.
A Subaru Legacy sedan that followed it rusted, too, but more equitably…equal time, or shall we say, equal rust, top and bottom. They also have had a 1967 Mustang in a barn for the last 40 years. It was put away salty and the rear quarters have perforated, just sitting in the humid air. “Running and of sound body when parked.”
Building upon what J P C stated above, based on my experience living in New Jersey since the 1970s, the rust situation here is not nearly as bad now as it was years ago. Most cars (and SUVs, minivans, trucks, etc.) I see on the road today look pretty clean. However, now and then I do see examples like the photos in this post. But you should have seen some of the rotten hulks chugging around the K-Mart parking lot circa 1980!
There was also the problem of chrome bumpers and trim pitting, staining, and rusting through–but modern vehicles are chromeless. The worst were ’50s cars with the exhaust coming directly out of jet-like rear bumper “pods”. What a bad idea!
Consumer Reports (based in New York) visited a used car lot in 1964 and found 5-year old cars with extensive rust on them already. Buyer beware!
“Rust never sleeps, better to burn out then to fade away” Neil Young wrote those words for NE car owners. Tried in vain to abate the rust on my 2008 Town & Country to no avail. Everyone I see of this generation seems to have the same issue except those painted Toreador Mica (shinny rust). It’s beautiful color and the five or so I inspected in parking lots and on the road are all spotless!
Whenever I see rust on this kind of scale here in Ohio it’s usually on trucks/SUV’s. Maybe trucks just last longer so they have more time to get rusty (I do see more older trucks from the 80s/90s than cars of the same era). Although there is a yellow Cavalier in my complex that could almost be on this list.
One of my grandfathers had an old Dodge truck whose rust looked like the black GMC, but on all the fenders (and along the bottom of the whole truck). 20 years of not getting babied will do that to your vehicle I suppose.
I battled rust in NJ and PA for years; I had heard of people spraying oil on underbodies, but stayed away from this option as too messy. Then I moved to Northeast Ohio. In Cleveland, real salt is mined right inside the city along the edge of Lake Erie and promptly used to dissolve every vehicle and road bridge as quickly as possible. I saw modern, galvanized three-year old cars with panels rusted through.
Clevelanders and Akronites who care about their cars have the underbodies sprayed with oil every autumn. There are shops that specialize in this, touting the benefits if their in-house blend of new and/or used petroleum products used to slow the salt attack. Usually one reserves an appointment in August for an October or November spray date.
I learned the science of oil spray from a older Akronite who swore by his three-part concoction. Although I moved away from Ohio, I am today a full believer and spray my vehicles yearly with a thick slurry of marine grease thinned out with high-zinc engine oil. I make sure to liberally apply the green slime on every surface that can be accessed with a spray gun or paint brush that isn’t a heat exchanger, exhaust pipe, or belt. Less than $20 in materials annually makes a huge difference in slowing the dust mites.
That’s great Max, and I agree, the surest way to prevent undercarriage rust. I had experimented with old motor oil thinned with kerosene one summer (drips a lot, stinks), befoer moving onto Fluid Film. I tried the gallon sprayed through a hand pump lawn sprayer, now I just buy a six pack of aerosol cans, enough to do a few cars. I bought the extra wand attachment to spray inside of frame rails and longerons and other nooks and crannies on unibody cars.
Hey gtemnykh,
how do you find the Fluid Film holds up?
do you have good techniques for getting the insides of doors?
The nice thing about starting with a grease base instead of an oil base is that it’s usually so thick that it hardly drips at all. I also take care to spray body seams such as those on the underside of the hood, the insides of the fenders, and the entirety of the wheel wells. I’ve attached a photo of the wheel well on my 2002 Grand Marquis after I sprayed it last year.
I find that it holds up well everywhere except for areas that get blasted directly with constant spray, or scraped with snow. So the diff and skid plates generally lose their fluid film, but everywhere else it picks up some road dust before the snow hits and stays on well. I like that it doesn’t smell like grease, as it is lanolin based. I don’t do insides of doors, just insides of the frame rails. The Toyotas like mine are very resilient to the body rusting, its the frame that gets it the worst.
It doesn’t matter what brand of car it is (except maybe late model Mazdas), everything here on Canada’s east coast rots after a few years, unless the owner is very meticulous in keeping it clean. You just don’t see much prior to early 2000s cars on the road very often here. If you do, it’s usually a truck.
Back to the Mazda… I had a 2002 MPV. It was the rustiest car I have ever owned. Mechanically, it was a great vehicle, but the body was a shambles. Open the hood and rust would rain down on you. The rear hatch rusted enough that the license plate fell off. The rocker panels were rotten. The exhaust was repaired multiple times because of rust.
My 2011 F150 is in need of rocker panels, after 7 salt filled winters. Luckily my Taurus isn’t as severe. I suppose its because the truck gets put into commuting duty when the weather is bad and the salt is thick.
Yes those FWD Mazda vans and Proteges of the same era are horrible on rust, as are late 90s-early 2000s Nissans.
Interesting to read about 2000s Mazdas’ propensity for rust in parts of North America. It is simply not an issue for my 2005 Mazda 6 and other Mazdas of a similar age where I live. Being a semi-arid location 2 hours drive inland might have something to do with it! The Australian sun is not kind to the paintwork, however.
Ahh, the CC effect at work again. I had an acquaintance visit just yesterday, he had just replaced his 2001 Dodge Caravan that was fully rotted out, with a 2002 model. He uses it for his work truck as a contractor. It is much cleaner, albeit with rust in the same spots as in the lead photo. Geez, it’s even the same colour as your lead shot. Inside it is very clean, just a hint of some salt stains on the carpet, and the dash was very familiar to me from my own long departed 2001.
Love the CC effect! As I mentioned, I saw a lot of these. They seem like they were really popular, I’m guessing because they are reliable if not rust-resistant.
In my part of Central Canada, Chrysler, GM and Mazda are reliably the worst rusters in that order. In their own league in fact, for at least a couple decades. Next, I’d suggest Hyundai and Nissan. On its own plateau as the least vulnerable to rust caused by road salt? Consistently Toyota. Which confirms Toyota’s dedication to all around durability.
If someone doesn’t need to drive everyday, and can avoid driving during or after winter storms, it can go a long way to preventing rust. As mild, wet sloppy weather, when fresh salt is applied, is when salt is most active and destructive. And when salt needs to be washed away whenever possible. In cold weather, when roads are dry and white with salt, the salt is inert. And won’t do its damage then. However alarming a car white with salt appears. Krown rust spray is probably the most popular extra measure owners use here for reliable protection.
As a kid in the 70s, seeing 1960s cars with openings in floorboards due to rust was not abnormal in various parts of Canada. I actually remember seeing cars parked for any length of time, with small piles of powdered rust or metal and rust bits sitting underneath.
The rust on that Grand Caravan in the lead pic says neglect to me. Though these were vulnerable to rust, the severity of the rust in the photo tells me the owner likely rarely washed their van in winter. And they certainly never addressed the rust when it was just starting.
Yes and no on Toyota. I recently sold my beloved 1st gen Tacoma due to frame rust concerns. Yes, the body looked amazing but the frame design was flawed and these were notorious rusters.
Indeed, the Tacoma frame design was a high profile example of a rare time where they missed the mark badly.
It wasn’t just first generation Tacomas, but also 2nd Generation Tacos and 1st and 2nd Generation Tundras. The frames for these trucks were all outsourced to Dana Corp. A friend of mine has a 2005 Tacoma since new and the frame just failed the rust inspection, this despite it being Krown Rust Proofed from new. The bodies on these trucks hold up well, but the frames require a lot of work to keep rust free in our climate.
Knowing the owner, I could definitely believe neglect. Though I think they bought it well used and probably rusting pretty well already.
Rust is so aggressive. And once it gets a foothold in numerous places, it is difficult to stay on top of. And challenging to eliminate.
Washing and waxing regularly is one of the best rust preventative measures.
I was born in 1951 and most of the cars that I (and my contemporaries) could afford had been ravaged by the tin worm. My first car, a 1961 Ford purchased in the summer of 1968) had massive rust holes in both rear fenders and smaller rust spots all along the bottom of the body. Fortunately the frame was less rusty so the car wasn’t unsafe to drive, just ugly looking. My closest friend in high school had a 1960 Corvair with a hole in the front passenger floorboard approximately 12 inches in diameter. We “fixed” this hole by cutting a piece of sheet metal a couple of inches bigger than the hole and gluing it in place.
It wasn’t only older cars that were prone to rusting back then; it was fairly common to see a vehicle only 3-4 years old showing signs of rust. One of our neighbors had a 1968 Ford that was starting to rust through when we moved to another house in 1971.
My experience has been the opposite of yours when it comes to rust. Mazda and Honda are the worst at rusting. Nissan and FCA aren’t that great either. Hondas tend to rust badly at the rear wheel wells. Had 3 Civics that died due to rust. GM and Toyota are the best at rust resistance. Audi is pretty good too, BMW and Mercedes less so. I had a Cadillac that had galvanized body panels and stainless steel exhaust. It had mechanical issues, but the body never had a speck of rust.
On the other hand I doubt GM would throw in stainless exhaust on a bargain basement Cavalier.
Probably not on a Cavalier, but I know the 94-96 Caprices had stainless exhaust as well galvanized lower bodies.
One thing I have noticed is that salt use varies widely. For example in the Detroit area, salt is applied in about equal parts to the amount of snowfall. It helps that Detroit sits atop a giant salt deposit. In Grand Rapids a lot less salt is used (more sand). I have been told it was to protect all the orchards in the area (salt getting into the soil – Carthage, etc.). It could also be the cost of salt brought to GR. In Windsor salt is also used with abundance but older cars seem to survive longer. I attribute this to undercoating and yearly refreshing of the undercoating (Crown, etc.).
I see many cars in Windsor that are long extinct on Detroit roads.
When I was younger the rumor was that the Big 3 and the salt mines were in cahoots to make cars dissolve so you’d buy a new one sooner. This was pre-Internet of course!
As far as your observation to domestic vs. import cars – it likely has to do with dealer support in the area.
I am not sure where you were visiting in MN and IA but up here, the rural areas are still very much domestic, most likely attributed to local dealer support.
I was visiting back home a few weekends ago (extreme NE Iowa) and there’s not an import car dealer for 65 miles. Most cars were American.
I was in the Rochester area in MN and Spencer/Okoboji area in NW Iowa, so not really rural. I would like to have more time to systematically observe. I wasn’t sure if there were just more domestics on the road to rust or if the imports rusted less.
I see. There certainly shouldn’t have been any lack of foreign makes in Rochester but NW Iowa is still very much a domestics market.
I live in central Iowa and can assure you many of the foreign makes rust just the same.
It never ceases to amaze me the fact that some places put salt on the streets, willingly destroying people’s cars. I understand some places get lots of snow but, can’t there be a better way to deal with it?
Much discussion of this has been going on for decades. So far nothing better/ affordable has emerged.
Part of the answer has to do with topography. Flatter areas can get away with using more sand and less salt than steeper areas. (Maine uses less salt than curvy Vermont).
Part of it is sand availability and price. Sand is rapidly becoming a rare and pricy commodity. The enormous amount of concrete construction that has occurred in the past 20 years (China) has vacuumed up available supplies.
Interesting! I didn’t know about the hill/salt factor. Isn’t much of the midwest pretty flat? The availability of sand is a good point. I hadn’t thought of that, but it makes sense with so much global development.
I lived in Michigan for 22 years, so I know of what you speak. I always suspected that auto manufacturers were in cahoots with municipalities when it came to road salt – the faster they can make your car rust out, the sooner you will buy a new one!
Last month I took a 2-week vacation to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Cars there are significantly LESS rusty than they are further south. For obvious reasons – it gets far too cold up there for salt to be an effective ice melter, so they use other options.
The rust in all the pics you have posted, except for the Estate Wagon, say negligence. The severity of the rust in each of these pics looks like damage that was allowed to worsen over the period of several years. Rust doesn’t happen overnight. But if it is never addressed, as it appears in these examples, it can blow up.
Thanks for excluding the Estate Wagon, even though it was 13 years old by the time I got it. I knew the owners and they were pretty responsible folks who took care of their cars. Not that they were necessarily out there every week hosing down the wagon in the winter…but there weren’t a lot of that generation B/C bodies still on the road at that point so it still beat the average.
I think a lot of people just don’t care that much about their cars. They are appliances that if they get a little rusty, no big deal. They would rather not sweat it than mess with all the work some of the posters conscientiously describe.
I am sure some of it is negligence, but in my part of Ontario, rust is inevitable. Even with the best care, the winters are so bad here it’s always a losing battle. Then finding a body shop that is willing to do rust repair and at a price that makes it worth while for an old car, often makes not a worthwhile proposition. A friend of mine runs a body shop and will normally refuse all rust repair (other than for friends). He says it’s not worth his time as to do it properly is often far more than the customer wants to pay. And of course some of his guys will cut corners which results in come-backs on his dime.
While Krown and other rustproofing helps a lot, rust still happens. My dad for example, bought a 2007 Civic new. He is probably one of the most meticulous vehicle owners ever. He Krowned his Civic from new, had it hand washed in winter and garaged it. Yet after 8 years it still developed a small rust spot on the rear fender. Krown paid for the repair, but he sold the car after that as it kind of soured him on the car.
For what it’s worth, the list of makes you cited as frequent rusters above is pretty accurate to what I see too. But I would also add Ford too. There are lots of Fords here in the 8 year old range that develop serious perforation rust. We have a 2011 Taurus at work with holes over the rear wheel wells. I also know of several F-150 owners that have had rusted out rockers and cab corners on their late model F150s (like my firends 2011 F150 that is turning into a rust bucket).
That said, modern cars are still vastly better than the stuff from the past. The 70’s American cars were horrible rusters.
I love the Cavalier — it has rusted-through holes on the sides, but at least there’s no stone chips on the hood due to the bra. Everyone has their own priorities!
So many telltale signs of neglect on that poor Cavalier. The body scrap on the side that went deep enough to bare metal. As the rust then took hold after several months like that. The discoloured front wheel cover reflecting brake dust that was never washed off. The vinyl on the bra looks so weathered that the smooth surface has worn away, to a very dark rough surface.
Oh, it’s poor, alright—just as poor as every other Cadavalier. I am very pleased these turds are disappearing from the roads.
Lol. When this generation was first introduced in 1994, I didn’t think they looked that bad. As attractive as the concurrent Neon and Escort. It was the cynicism of GM’s poor build quality and cost cutting that made me cynical towards them. Though GM touted many improvements like a much stiffer body, they still came away with a no more improved reputation than the previous generation. Here in Ontario, they have largely disappeared. You’ll see the occasional senior-driven, well-maintained sample.
Yeah, that was pretty funny with the bra! But it looks like it is as old as the car, so the love it receives has probably dropped precipitously over the last 20 years. In fact, since it is still on the road, it may have been well cared for it’s first decade or so and just been let go to rot by subsequent owners. It is a Cavalier, after all.
To me, automobile rust is not simply unsightly. It is more accurately the easiest way possible to toss hundred dollar bills into the wind.
Living in Vermont I shudder every time I see high value cars and SUVs being driven in the salt. If they had the benefit of hindsight and calculated loss of value over, say, 5 years they would find that every day they took their $70k auto for a ride in the salt slush they were actually throwing away hundreds of dollars! They could have called a limo and private driver for their use that day and saved a bundle.
Savvy Vermonters use the beater system. They never, ever, expose their new car, even for one day, to a salty highway (rust never sleeps). They park it in the yard (where the cold actually helps to preserve it). My rule of thumb when living there in winter was that anything worth less than $400 qualified as a beater. Sometimes I could get two, even three, seasons out of a beater. Yes, it is inconvenient. But like everything else in life if you are going to stay solvent you have to work at it.
Case in point: I bought a brand new Toyota truck in VT in 1988. Toyota trucks of that vintage reliably experienced terminal rust-through in the frame (right behind the driver) in exactly ten years. You could insert the date in your calendar ahead of time and it would happen right on schedule. (All vehicles experience much greater rust on the drivers side because the salt is spread right down the middle of the crowned highway).
I just sold that truck, 31 years later, for somewhat more than half what I originally paid for it. I gained an extra 21 years of use and many thousands of dollars to boot.
Education regarding the ravages of salt should be part of the curriculum, a chapter in home economics. Now that we are more aware of embodied carbon (the carbon involved in the materials, manufacturing, and delivery of a new car), the case is even more urgent.
My ’96 4Runner was bought new in Davenport Iowa and used there for 4 years (after a Ziebart application) before being parked winters. I’ve had it since 2013 and have a two-fold strategy: keep it thoroughly oil-undercoated, and keep it out of the salt to begin with whenever possible. This has lead me to drive a beater in the winter, even though Central Indiana isn’t QUITE as bad on road salt as back home in Central NY. The frame on my truck is just about as immaculate as it gets short of a truck from the Southwest.
The idea of a “winter beater” sounds great until you realize that in many places, they have to pass inspection just like any other car.
I don’t use my 2003 poulan pro lawn mower in the winter on salty roads but rust is getting so bad that the deck is half gone
I know that grass clippings can cause corrosion and it’s old but the engine still starts on the first pull
They must have used Chinese steel on the deck
I remember the winter beater strategy well from my time in Vermont. I had one my self one year, even though that $50(!) 76 Omega was just protecting my less rusty 72 Coronet.
$400 might be a little low nowadays. If one could afford $70k for a nice new car, it would probably be money well spent to get a $5,000 car that would be reliable over multiple years but still be cheap enough to be expendable. Or buy a nice 88 Toyota truck and just take really good care of it.
By that logic wouldn’t it be even more economical to just drive the beater year round? I’m assuming most people that have the new $70k family vehicle really have a new $599 or whatever per month lease payment and will be damned if they are going to pay $599 per month to park it in the backyard for six months out of the year. Most of them will give it back in three or four years anyway when the lease is up and then it’ll be the problem of whoever buys it used.
I get the idea of the beater car but you’re still insuring two cars, maintaining two cars, driving one car that is VASTLY less safe and probably less reliable in the exact conditions where the newer car is actively paying for itself and half the reason you bought the new car in the first place. It’s just a cost of living in that part of the world, offset by other advantages.
To me the beater car only makes sense if you have a lesser beater car that is the normal ride. i.e. a 5year old 4Runner being preserved by using a 10year old Pathfinder on really bad days. If I had a new 4Runner winter is exactly the time I’d be using all day, every day and the ’76 Olds Omega can stay in the backyard until I get around to restoring it…:-)
I can see if you have a nice car, that you want to keep for a long time, so you have a beater 4wd that you use when the snow flies and for hauling things. I more or less do that which is why my old pickup is 4wd, though salt is not a problem in our area, I’d just prefer to be in a 4wd that I don’t care if it gets another little dent or scratch.
“Most of them will give it back in three or four years anyway when the lease is up and then it’ll be the problem of whoever buys it used”.
Naturally. Few owners of high end cars will take the hit that I described.
That’s the American way. The divide between the haves and have-nots grows wider every day.
Jim in my case yes my beater car is my daily commuter year round, I cycled cars every 6 months or so making a small profit on each on generally. In the spring/summer I liked having a old Ford Ranger for various yard work and hauling tasks, come late summer I’d swap out for something FWD/AWD, drive that through the winter and sell at an advantageous time (tax return season) and start the cycle over again. The 4Runner was more of a long trip car and for camping trips. Although since our baby arrived the 4Runner just sits, camping is on pause, road trips are done in our new Town&Country. My original plan was to preserve the 4Runner for my son’s first car, we’ll see.
Sounds like another case of: This is for YOUR OWN GOOD.
Oh, Boss, please don’t be so good to me.
I find it amazing that folk are allowed to use vehicles with so much rust. Someone I know here in Ireland had their (15 year old ? ) Opel Corsa fail the annual test because of a rust hole in the door, but you had to open the door to see the hole – the outer skin was fine.
I find if amazing that folks will permit their government to forbid them using their own property because of a strictly cosmetic flaw.
Right on, Steve! 🗽
One of the most looked for items on British cars is ‘passed recent MOT’ Increases value measurably.
Having grown up in the Midwest, myself, where Michigan road salt dissolved pretty much anything and everything, rust was also a little like metaphorical, automotive “acne”.
I had bad skin for a minute when I was an adolescent, and seeing a nice looking car that was otherwise well-maintained (like our snazzy, burgundy ’77 Plymouth Volare coupe with white vinyl trim), it reminded me of zits.
The only thing is that one can’t get rid of areas of sheetmetal rust bubbles and corrosion by squeezing them. (Can you imagine?)
“Dr. Fender-Popper, M.D.”
Another great piece, Jon.
Thanks!
Rusty Volare coupe, eh?
Ha! Dean, I think I need a tetanus shot just from looking at this picture!
Rustproofing technologies have certainly become better in the last two decades or so, but these new liquid salt solutions towns and the state sprays here in the Northeast undoubtably may be a match even for modern cars, as I can only imagine the havoc they wreak havoc on the lower body and undercarriage.
In any event, there are certain vehicles that seem to have a higher prevalence of deep rust despite relatively young age, and the 4th generation Chrysler minivans are among them.
Having lived in NM since 2002 I have to take a road trip to my ancestral home of Ohio roughly once or twice a decade to remind myself that rust is still “a thing” or I tend to forget that it is really a problem.
I’m probably being cynical here, and perhaps Maryland is nowhere near as bad as the mid-west, but we are talking about a State Highway Administration that is SO paranoid when it comes to snow (and ice) that at the mere threat of simply flurries in the forecast, the SHA brings out the damned salt trucks.
But in all the years I have lived here and owned cars I have NEVER, EVER, had one rust out.
My secret? WASH THE CAR IMMEDIATELY after the weather event is over. And be thorough. Spray that water up under the wheel wells and as far underneath the car as you can get. Wash the door jams. Get a coat of wax on it… in fact with today’s clear coat cars, it’s even easier. Every time you wash it, use a product like Turtle Wax’s “Wax and Dry” as you dry it off. Sure, it’s not the same as a paste wax, but today’s clear coats don’t really need it.
My point is, if you keep after it, you should not have a major problem. I daily drove my 2007 Mustang from when I got it in snowy February of 2008 until 2016, when it was retired to pleasure use. Snow, Sleet, SALT, and gloom of night…. it saw it all.
Recent picture below (June 2019 on a rare drive to work nowadays)…
Original Paint… I don’t see any rust, do you?
Rant over, and apologies, but this is a sore subject with me. I get the question all the time, “How does your car look like that after 12 years and 178,000 miles?” You just need a little patience and have to keep after it is all.
Nice job! Are the S197 Mustangs know to be rusters? I have a 2011, but of course I live in TX so rust is not a personal concern. Lucky me, but you seem to have mastered that scourge!
You know, come to think of it Jon, I’ve never seen a rusty S-197.
But, that said, my first car was a know ruster… a ‘73 Ford LTD. Supposedly, they started to rust within 3 years. It was 6 or so when it became my sister’s car. Under my watch, it shined like this Mustang. Once my sister got ahold it however, it became smasher worthy in short order. By 1981 it was gone. 😢 Needless to say, she learned nothing from watching her brother (me), or our father (from whom I learned) how to take care of a car.
My ’73 Galaxie’s rear quarters and rockers and the rear lower part of the front fender were more bondo than metal. Finally gave up when water started leaking into the interior and then turned into mildew which spread over every surface in the car, ever the rear view mirror over a hot Arkansas summer. Didn’t want to breathe in mildew when the a/c or heater was running. It was that bad. And that mildew stink. Whew!
Only car I’ve ever owned that was a serious ruster and I bought it in Montana when I was working there.
A couple of things here that I have to mention: Regardless of age, I don’t remember rusty cars with shiny paint when I was a child. The cars rust less, but the paint definitely lasts much better. I see more rust on pickup rear fenders than everything else put together, and they’re the last vestige of unlined fenders after the industry officially learned not to do that with the 1970 Vega. I don’t remember seeing rust out on 1st or 2nd generation Chrysler minivans.
Yes, those early Chrysler minivans used lots of galvanized steel in the lower bodies. Other than the pickups and vans, almost everything built by Chrysler from about 1980 on through the rest of the decade were highly resistant to rusting.
Oregon DOT says they avoid rock salt (sodium chloride, like table salt) because it’s expensive to store, and has bad effects on the groundwater. Not to mention rust, in cars but also in bridges. They’ve been using magnesium chloride instead, applied as a liquid, which isn’t as corrosive or bad for the environment. It can be sprayed before ice and snow arrives to prevent adhesion.
But ODOT is experimenting with rock salt in some of the worst highway spots, such as I-5 in the mountains near the southern border. Here’s an article from last fall about how that’s going.
We just don’t see rust like this in New Zealand anymore. I do remember quite rusty cars from my early-80s childhood, but legislation outlawed them a long time ago. Most perforations and/or jagged exposed edges wouldn’t pass our 12-monthly (or 6, depending on vehicle age) inspections. Most cars are rust-free here nowadays, so it’s cheaper and easy to get rid of a rusty car and buy something similar without rust.
In my childhood, there were plenty of mundane older cars (say 20 years old) around with varying degrees of rust. But a child growing up today won’t see nearly as many 20ish year old cars, as the rusty ones will have been scrapped long ago. It does make for a less interesting automotive landscape, but is far better for safety.
Having said that, my now 30-year-old Ford Sierra has only reached that age because I’ve spent far more than it’s worth on rust removal – some major, some minor. NZ-new Sierras didn’t really rust, but mine spent the first 8 years of its life on salted roads in the UK before emigrating here, so the underside has been problematic. Why do I continue to fight the rust battle? Well it might only be a mundane old station wagon (albeit rare spec), but there are so few left now that I almost feel it’s my duty to keep a piece of the past alive. And as a cancer survivor myself, maybe I’m paying forward all the effort that was put into keeping me alive years ago!
Yes Scott I well remember bogging up rust on shitbox old cars to get them thru a WOF to nurse another six months use out of em, everything rusted but some cars were truly shocking, I’m on m,y fourth fully galvanised daily driver now, I put a 6x4ft sheet of panel steel into my Hillman and that really is the last time I’m doing that.
In 1991 in Chicago, I needed a car to get to work and although I was making $5/hour ($1.25 above minimum, mind you) I settled on a 1978 Malibu wagon with 150,000 miles on the odometer and American Racing rims on the wheels. Outwardly, it seemed to have managed the salty Chicago winters pretty well. After a few months, however, I noticed an enormous BANG from the back of the car every time I drove over one of Chicago’s numerous potholes. Consultation with my corner mechanic (it took a while, as his English wasn’t as strong as his honesty) it turned out that the bolts holding the rear of the body to the frame were rusted out and entirely gone. Thus the BANG was the sound of the body rising up and slamming back down on the frame. I was quite alarmed and asked him what he should do. In a nutshell: “Nothing! It’s still attached at the front!” I drove that car for another year until I traded it in on a nearly-new Saturn. They gave me $250 on the trade-in (I think out of pity.) So I got a year’s worth of 42-mile commutes (each way) for $500. A bargain.
Salt eats cars. It sucks. What sucks worse is traveling on icy roads wishing you were stuck behind the plow truck. Salt saves lives by preventing crashes and makes Interstate commerce possible. My rust preventing solution is old school, raw linseed oil.
When I was a little kid, this memorable commercial ran in my area every winter for a number years, starting in the early 70s. Very 1970s.
1997 Saturn, bought in Los Angeles, moved to upstate NY for grad school then to Minneapolis — I just came back from there on a work trip and saw many similar specimens as shown here — and after five salty winters the exhaust fell off and the bottoms of all four doors were mostly gone.
That plastic body skin still looked OK… I got $50 trade for a leased VW and vowed never to buy a new car as long as I lived in salt country. That VW and the Audi that followed became someone else’s problem. I bought a 1991 Volvo 240 when i lived in Boston around 2009, intending it to be an all-season beater, and the thing still won’t die despite plenty of underbody rust but very little topside. Now it’s my airport/train station car.
I visited a couple of junkyards when I was in Minnesota this summer, surprisingly I didn’t see many rust-horrors. They weren’t all accident damaged either but generally just worn out I suppose (or that ONE big repair that wasn’t going to happen). So cars DO still wear out even in rust-inducing locales.
We get some rust out here in Colorado but what we are seeing more and more of is the plastichrome bits being discolored by the mag-chloride. It gets little spots that look like rust but obviously isn’t and is almost impossible to remove on the grille surrounds and side trim if there is any. Thankfully it’s merely cosmetic but has me looking at new cars with an eye toward the least plasti-chrome on them to avoid it.
Great pix, you have a good steady hand or are good at taking the time to crop to keep everything nicely centered…
Thanks, I do always crop.
Having lived almost my entire adult life in South Carolina, massive, aggressive rust on cars less than 20 years old is just shocking to me. I guess we are spoiled down here.
I don’t even own a snow shovel. Not that we’ve had a snowfall last more than 24 hours on the ground…
In my years of having a body shop, I dreaded seeing these things come in. Of course the owner never wanted to spend much, they would always say “can’t you just…..” I learned to hate those 3 words, because what they really mean to say is “can’t you just repair it so it’s perfect and never rusts again, but not charge me a lot?”
some of the worst offenders were rear wheel openings on ram 2500s and ford f250s. If you ever look at buying a pickup up with plastic fender flares – RUN. they are there to hide rust.
I grew up in western New York. Rusty cars are a ubiquitous fact of life there. I recall as a child, my dad’s ‘65 Bel Air failed inspection in 1974 due to a rusty frame.
That said, we left in 1974 for Florida. Rust is only an issue here for people near the beach. Just the air will rot a car in some cases.
I returned to New York in 2015 for the first time since leaving 41 years prior. Crossing the state line in a decidedly rural, farming area on US20 near Lake Erie, I was struck by the rust. Everywhere. Lots of tractor implements. If it was metal and not painted, it was rusty. On my FaceBook page I had to note: “Crossing into New York. Old Indian term for, ‘Everything is rusty’”
Haven’t commented much lately. Got some inspiration.
I know all about rusty cars! I may have something to offer here.
Most of my cars have been older and I live in the rust-belt.
Wrote a short book, or at least a big pamphlet.
Even made paragraphs.
Covered ten years, five cars, had funny parts and a question or two to ponder.
Edited it and polished it as good as I could.
Tried to make it interesting to others and not just myself like many I’ve done.
I was very happy with it.
Submitted it, realizing my mistake instantly.
It said I commented too much.
And it vanished.
I think I only posted twice in a week.
I knew I should have saved it first.
But I didn’t.
My Grand Prix comment from the other day was rejected for the same reason.
But that one was a half-assed effort so no biggie.
There’s a lot of new energy here lately. Less reruns, and more actual older survivor cars on the street.
Like, you know, classics on the curbside or something like that.
Really great articles, one after another.
For example, Joseph’s posts have a positivity that is growing on this cynical person.
I want to participate in this energized environment.
But the website glitches are tiresome and are killing my joy of commenting.
So I may comment less but I’m still enjoying the the content.
Nah, just kidding.
Badly written there, sorry. Like the content, wasn’t kidding about that part.
The ‘commenting too quickly’ error has been a head scratcher. For example, I have never gotten that one even once while several of you have gotten it a lot. It might be a good practice to highlight all of the text of your comment and save it so that you can paste it into another attempt.
I used to get it all the time. Logging in solved it for me.
If I don’t log in (such as when on my phone) I get the posting too quickly message. The saving grace is I can go back on my phone and have the comment reappear. Submit again, same message. Back and try again, same thing. Then I click on it, “Select All”, then “Copy” and then submit without changing anything else and BAM it posts. Logging in helps tremendously, saving it works every other time and if it doesn’t work it’s saved to try again.
That lost comment sounds epic! I have lost a few good ones myself, it’s very frustrating.
I don’t believe I’ve had any problems after logging in. Now I always try to highlight and copy my comments before I send them, just in case.
Worse case scenario I have ever seen was a Chevy Cavalier in upstate New York.
The window mechanism was visible as the rest of the center door panel was gone. The rear quarter panel was blistered beyond belief and sills were completely rotten.
That sounds bad. The worst I ever saw was about 15 years ago. An elderly neighbor was having a garage sale and I saw that he had a 64 Studebaker Commander sedan in his garage. It was the rustiest car I have ever seen in my life. The floors and rockers were more absent than present and the B pillar on the drivers side was not attached to anything at the bottom – it just kind of hung there from the roof. I was amazed that the door would latch.
Back in the 1980’s I made it a point to have every car I purchased professionally rust proofed. It’s rather expensive, but effective. I believe it cost $300 to have my Renault Encore rustproofed but it worked. Renaults had a reputation for rusting away, I saw it several years after I traded it in and it had no rust. By the ’90’s the manufacturers seemed to be doing a better job of rust proofing their vehicles as I had a 95 Voyager and after 81/2 years of ownership there was no rust on it. Same for my 2004 Element, 2008 Odyssey and (so far) my 2015 Odyssey.
Foreign cars dont rust ? They are only american iron…
That wasn’t intentional. I just shot the cars I found. At the end of the article I acknowledge that and ask for speculation on why that was the case. Random or pattern?
Oregon is mostly salt free and low rust except for cars near the ocean and some outliers. Early 90s Subaru Legacy wagons seemed to rust in spots on the tailgate, so you could identify individual cars by their markings, just like zebras.
In the late 80’s my mother had a Ford Fiesta mk2, prolific rusters like most 70’s/80’s cars, yet hers had perfect bodywork.
Turned out that it was orignally a Jersey market car, Jersey is one of the larger channel islands situated just off the coast of Normandy, France. So cars destined for that market came fully galvanised.
I grew up in the 1950’s in Northeastern Ohio, just south of Akron. The western Auto stores sold “slip on” rocker panels. The idea was to paint the inside and outside of the of the “slop on” with panel thick black paint, and sheet metal screw it in place. Repeat every 2 years. Many people drove a beater with a heater.
https://youtu.be/aeZ0BUc3kMw
I’ve lived all my life in Wisconsin and Minnesota. Every car I’ve ever owned, has been rusty… Both my older vehicles (2008 and 2010) are starting to rust through, which makes me sad. But short of not driving in the winter (stay home for 7 months?) I just wash my vehicles as often as possible, and hope for the best…