Sadly my 2001 Forester was side-swiped and the back wheel-well partially replaced. I just noticed rust forming in the area of the wheel-well where there welding took place. ( exposed bare metal ) I would like to coat the newly exposed area with the secret subaru compound which they spray under the wheel wells to prevent rust. Can it be re-applied? What is the best way to do this and where can it be purchased.

 

Pat

I don't know about the secret Subaru undercoating compound, but I would like to say that if you are going to spray something over existing rust, take steps to get rid of absolutely all the rust that is there first. Spraying stuff on top of rust won't stop it, it'll just hide it while it eats holes in your car.

 

This would seem to be the responsibility of whoever did the repair, and don't let them spray over rust either.

All factory sheetmetal is zinc-plated, except maybe for the roof panel. If the replacement is not galvanized, I believe it does not meet the standard of "like-kind quality"

Well, there are two factory "coatings" I can think of.

The first is something that looks like typical undercoating.

 

The second is this blue waxy stuff that I had never seen before until we started to install a trailer hitch on my friend's 2006 WRX.

 

If you want hardened coating, you could Rhino-liner or Line-x on there. But that gets expensive for this application.

You might want to try POR-15. I plan on using it for my wife's 2000 OBW, which has spent most of its life next door in Vermont. The underside of that car is covered in surface rust... nothing really bad yet, but I want to nip it before it does get bad.

 

I noticed a few spots of rust on my '97 OBW, specifically bubbling paint on the control arms in a spot or two. That'll get some POR-15 dabbed on, too... thankfully it's nowhere near as bad as the '00. Seeing as it started out in Colorado, I'd guess they don't use a lot of salt out there...

 

I don't have any personal experience with it yet, but I've asked around a bit... nobody has anything really bad to say about it, and most say it's good stuff. I plan on knocking off as much loose rust as possible with either a wire brush or a wire disc on a battery powered drill, then coating it with POR-15, then spraying that cheap rubber undercoating crap over it, as soon as the POR-15 has set properly.

Yo Bard, you know about the recall on the rear subframe anti-corrosion finish on that 2000 OBW, right?

Yep. Just had it in for the coolant conditioner recall, and while they were dumping the stuff in and then replacing the driver's side headgasket (Thank you Subaru!), they performed the anti-corrosion recall.

 

I asked the service guy while we were picking it up for some details... apparently they spray the inside of the rear subframe assembly. They don't treat the exterior subframe, so I'm still stuck with dealing with that.

Cool. Good job on the head gasket. And it's probably worth the time to clean up the rust - these are pretty good cars.