Modern cars don't rust. Do they?

[HFStuart]

This subject has just been brought up on another forum where a member is considering a Zafira as a sensible car

http://www.wheels-alive.co.uk/serious-danger-zafira-rust-nightmare-revealed-by-our-grumpy-old-mechanic/

Genuinely shocking and a serious design flaw. At least the subframes only dropped on S1 Betas - the whole corner could come off with this.

[squiglyzigly]

modern cars certainly do rust. Up until recently I thought most cars where galvanised with a few plastic panels thrown in to save weight. But a friend of mine runs an mot station, informed me that many newer cars are full of rust. It would seem the galvanised era that I think fiat may have kickstarted with the Tipo has passed.
I guess they dont want cars lasting too long for obvious reasons. He has seen higher end cars such as Jags failing mot's due to rust.

[rossocorsa]

To be fair that's 13 years old at the date of that article, still gruesome but it's an old car. Corrosion on some other well respected brands when much younger is more of an issue

[mangocrazy]

The rust on that Vauxhall was also caused by poor design decisions regarding the undertray. Any steel will rust if you hold a wet sponge to it over a period of years...

[HFStuart]

To be fair that's 13 years old at the date of that article, still gruesome but it's an old car.

I think that's rather the point  - I don't view 13 years as old for a modern car. It's the sort of thing thousands of families would go to their local second hand dealer and pay 1000 - 1500 for. They'd see it had a full ticket and think no more - they'd never even suspect an issue of that magnitude.

[RichB]

My wife's Alfa GT is 12 years old and has some terrible rust traps - wheel arch liners made of semi porous carpet, leading to sills filled with polythene bags of insulation. Seriously, you can pull them out. The sills are are easy to dent as the jacking points are hard to spot. It's a pretty car but not well made at all.