The salt has finally gotten to my 95 wagon. It's starting to get rust spots by the wheel wheels and at the very bottoms of the doors. It it worth my while to grind out the spots and bondo/prime/paint it? A bodyshop guy I trust told me that he wouldn't take my money to do it because it will just come back again. I did a little spot by the door last year and it's starting to rust again.

The sad thing is that the car mechanically is in great shape at 150K and I'd hate to see it get rust ugly...

Any tips or should I just learn to accept rust on my old Subie in rock salt country...

The salt has finally gotten to my 95 wagon. It's starting to get rust spots by the wheel wheels and at the very bottoms of the doors. It it worth my while to grind out the spots and bondo/prime/paint it? A bodyshop guy I trust told me that he wouldn't take my money to do it because it will just come back again. I did a little spot by the door last year and it's starting to rust again.

The sad thing is that the car mechanically is in great shape at 150K and I'd hate to see it get rust ugly...

Any tips or should I just learn to accept rust on my old Subie in rock salt country...

 

Hi,

There is a product called POR-15 that I have used to fight rust and have had great results. You have to carefully prepare the surface and their website has all the details. They even have an epoxy type filler that dries hard as a rock..I even use it to mend a hole in my computer monitor and patched a leak in my basement wall with the stuff.

Hope that this helps!

u try a rust proofing think thats electronic. http://cgi.ebay.ca/AUTOMOTIVE-RUST-CORROSION-PROTECTION_W0QQitemZ4633120632QQcategoryZ50073QQtcZphotoQQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

like this, however i tryed it and it didn't work but i remember one that acually worked but need to be setup up in various places around the vehicle.

Inspect the undercarrige, and make sure there is no rot there. Surface rust is easy enough to deal with, perforation is a lot harder. Clean out all the body drains, then if the chassis is ok go ahead and fix it.

 

nipper

That Roo is to young to die!! I have keep many Subaru's in NEW ENGLAND rust FREE with three things! Wash under body AND WHEEL WELLS during the winter EVERY TIME IT GETS ABOVE 32 DEGREES!!! Touch-up and nicks and scratches as soon as they apear! GET SOME RUSTCHECK AND COAT & PROTECT FROM OUR CANADIAN FREINDS AND coat the under body GOOD!!! Pull the body plugs and get inside the subframe memebers and voids!!

For what it's worth, I'm going to be buying some POR-15 and going over our OBW's this summer. My '97 needs a few touch-ups here and there underneath, and the wife's '00 has a quite a bit of surface rust on various components (once again, all underbody). I've heard good things about POR-15, and it sure beats my dad's method (spraying old motor oil over the underbody, then running down a dusty road...)

Thanks for all your tips and ideas. The weather's warming up so I'm going to give some of those rust treatments a try. The 95 Subie is too good looking to have rust spots.

I hear you on the car washing tips. However, it's not a very doable thing in Chicago. The car gets completely coated with salt on the way BACK from the car wash. It literally looks like a frosted mini-wheat the salt is that bad. Chicago salt kills cars. It also kills the roads. You DON'T want to be a Chicago commuter... The high curbs in Chicago also scrapes the bottoms of the car doors. I've been negligent in touching up the bottoms of the car doors. It doesn't help when you've got the party wagon tasked with carrying the gang to the bars... My bad.

The underside of the car is fine. I just was negligent attending to the nicks that my car accumulated (parking lot dings, etc.). I'm doing a much better job with my WRX. I also don't drive my WRX in the winter to keep it away from the salt (the high performance tires are also worthless in the snow and ice).

POR 15....excellent product, it must be top coated if the area will be exposed to sunlight otherwise the coating fades to a gray clor but doesn't affect the protection. I have restored 50+ cars and this was our product of choice, we used it on ALL of them even those worth $500,000+ because it works.

I've heard great things about POR 15, and was almost going to use it to do a little touch up work last summer.

 

I stumbled upon Rust Bullet. It is easier to use, application wise. It seems to have done the job quite well, but my work was very limited. You might want to investigate.

 

Commuter

I've heard great things about POR 15, and was almost going to use it to do a little touch up work last summer.

 

I stumbled upon Rust Bullet. It is easier to use, application wise. It seems to have done the job quite well, but my work was very limited. You might want to investigate.

 

Commuter

I went to their site and what they claim is impressive. Where and how did you buy their stuff Commuter?

Am I right in reading that the second coat is with the same stuff and not with something else?

I hope you have better results with Rust Bullet than we did, we applied it to some different areas that had a spot of rust here or there on our own cars/projects and in a few months there was rust again. I have read similar problems from others on an Early Bronco message board I belong to.

I went to their site and what they claim is impressive. Where and how did you buy their stuff Commuter?

Am I right in reading that the second coat is with the same stuff and not with something else?

Second coat is the same material as the first.

I found an Ontario dealer (in Peterborough I think) that I ordered from.

 

As I said, I only did a few small spots. I'm no 'car body' guy. The work was rough and probably not prepped as good as it should have been, but it's been 8 months and seems fine. I did paint over the spots. The total area that I did was in the order of 5 square inches.

 

Whatever works for you.

 

Commuter

The 2 major rules of using POR 15:

 

1) Put a piece of saran wrap between the lid of the can and the lid when you are done and sealing it back up. Otherwise, you won't get the lid back off.

 

2) ABSOLUTELY wear a pair of heavy gloves you can throw away when you are done with them. Should you get POR 15 on your skin, it's damn near a tattoo. The stuff has to wear off.