Rust and fairly recent cars

[peteracs]

Hi All

Not sure if this has been raised before here, but I just spent a morning under the Saab (09 registered) and it is quite interesting to see just how much rust there is on certain of the parts. No big surprise I guess, but also remembered a posting on the LMC forum I think where a less than 10 year old Zafira had a front cross member completely rusted. You could jot see it as above the underbody tray.

On the Saab it is the rear cross member which is the worst, oddly there is some underseal, but nothing on the cross member which has lost a lot of its paint. Unchecked I think another 5-10 years and it would need replacing. Given how much stuff hangs on this and the value of the car, probably around £3k if you are lucky, then it would be off to the scrap yard for a lot of folk. I have yet to visit the front, but expect a similar story.

The actual body of the car is in great shape with no obvious rust bubbles, just a shame they did not put the same effort into the other metal parts.

Peter

[rossocorsa]

I think it's not unexpected at that age, it is 12 years old after all. I think back to the 70s and you'd be lucky to get 3 years out of most cars without some corrosion. I also think that as we get older we consider older and older cars to be 'new' or 'nearly new' I tend to think of people as posh if they have a VW, BMW or other Germanic status chaser on anything registered this century.

[peteracs]

Yes it is 12 years old, but the body is in really good condition, no rust to speak of, it is just a number of the suspension parts which are corroded, ie poorly protected which I would have thought would not have been so difficult or expensive to do.

Peter

[Neil-yaj396]

The body panels will be stamped in zinc plated steel sheet which should never rust unless it is damaged. Some of the heavier under parts are probably just painted mild steel.