rust prevention for winter

for those of you living in the snow states, has anyone had their undercarriage sprayed with the rust-prevention stuff?

i live in Colorado where they bathe the roads in mag-chloride as soon as the snow starts falling. i plan on keeping my car as long as possible, so i am wondering if this is worth it

Honestly, I was thinking about plasti-dipping my wife's car underneath rather than the undercoat. I think it would be tougher and more resilient and probably not much more expensive.

Clean it really well underneath with a power washer with some baking soda in the mix so it will neutralize everything. Let it sit a couple of days and dry and then go ahead and spray all of the seams with the plasti-dip.

I'm going to do my wife's absolutely rust free 1998 OB wagon that way.

Good luck.

OCD like AMMONYC

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScPUHIqQLh0

I recently de-rusted my undercarriage. Put my car up on stands. Took a wire wheel brush on a drill and brushed away some heavy stuff like on welds of arms and the frame. Sprayed all the rust spots with a rust perforator/converter spray. Then painted with black rustoleum spray paint. Finally I laid down a coat of undercoating in a can to pretty much everything!

It didn't take long. If I were to do it again I may use a rust resisting primer that adheres to both metal, paint, and mild rust instead of regular rustoleum.

Note: Avoid all sprays on exhaust parts!

i get the whole car sprayed in oil. inside doors, body plugs, everywhere.

i would worry about plastidip. its not very permanent and as it starts to peel may hold water and salt underneith it.

Fluid Film, look it up. I sprayed the under side of my 86' F150 and the trailer last Fall, the rust under both of them has not changed since last year. Granted they aren't used much but the stuff works well. I was told about the stuff by my GF's son-in-law who works in the Motor Pool at the Army base he's at.

If you use the car a lot you may have to re-apply every year, but I bought 3 can's of $30. and still have some left over.

What really stumps me is that rarely any subaru owners I speak to have rust coated their underbody. There's also many articles online about how over the past 20 years, car companies have taken extra measures to rust proof their underbody metals.

You think subaru would be doing this, especially after 2005...then again, they were still installing catted up - pipes and banjo filters ...

I hate Fluid Film. But that's because it's what we use on our aircraft in the Coast Guard. We spray that shit everywhere.

Let me guess, they spray it everywhere because why ? It works.

My car isn't that old, but it does have 178k on it, and has lived in CT for most of its life, with a couple years in MA/ME mixed in.

I think the reason why you might not hear much about it, is because based off my car alone, subaru does a pretty good job with rust prevention in my opinion.

Sure a lot of the nuts and bolts under my car have rust, and the exhaust system is pretty rusted, but other than that I'm really happy with the lack of rust that is under my car.

When I was under my car a few days ago replacing my differential fluids, I looked around, and I did think about touching up some rust spots here and there. The only areas under my car I thought about really hitting were some of the welds, which had rust on them. Sure rust prevention wouldn't hurt in other spots, but I didn't see any areas that truly needed it in my opinion.

Here's a few pictures under the rear of my car with around 130k on it 2 years ago. On the far right in the first two images, you can see subaru's undercoating which still looks the same right now. You can also see spotty rust here and there, but nothing that really stands out.

http://legacygt.com/forums/showpost.php?p=4456614&postcount=23

I wouldn't let the underbody of the impala in that youtube video give you the wrong impression. The underbody of my car looks nothing like that, though I understand it isn't as old as that impala, but I still have a lot of miles on the clock.

It's also interesting because over the years, there's been some stuff on the news about CT switching to a magnesium chloride/salt mix in the winter time, and how the magnesium chloride has really caused an increase in rust on cars and trucks. I guess this is common, but other states like Colorado add a rust inhibitor to their winter road treaments to help reduce corrosion.

Couple random links on some of the things I mentioned.

http://www.wfsb.com/story/23874231/mechanics-blame-winter-road-treatment-for-damage-to-cars

https://www.codot.gov/travel/winter-driving/products.html

What really stumps me is that rarely any subaru owners I speak to have rust coated their underbody. There's also many articles online about how over the past 20 years, car companies have taken extra measures to rust proof their underbody metals.

 

You think subaru would be doing this, especially after 2005...then again, they were still installing catted up - pipes and banjo filters ...

Thats because you forgot about Subaru's built in passive undercarriage coating they have been using for years.....

2005 with 80k miles. The thing hasn't ran in years and the rust is kinda still getting to it. I may try that stuff out.

http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k280/merc6/LGT/1-8-2015%205404_zpsam5fuptc.jpg~original