Door Bottom Rust: Should I Buy This Suburban?

Looked at a 2002 Suburban tonight. 65k miles, in great shape. $7,900. Good tires, totally dry engine--no seeping anywhere! Only concern is that all four doors have some rust on the seam at the bottom of the door. One of the four is bad enough that you can see it from the outside. The tailgate has minor bubbling at the bottom.

I'm trying to decide if the rust is a deal breaker or not. If I could get this fixed for $1k, and it would stay away for two or three years, it would still be a good deal. If not, maybe I need to up my budget, or start looking for a truck that hasn't spent its life in the rust belt. Is this a possibility?

Pics:

See what the local junk yard wants for a set of doors. I bet it'll be cheaper and easier than cutting, grinding, welding, and painting.

around here that's as close to perfect as you are going to find in any 12 year old truck...

That's pretty normal. It's also pretty hard to fix, and nigh impossible to permanently eradicate. You'd have to take them off, remove the seam sealer, sandblast, POR-15 or epoxy the seam and repaint.

In reply to ddavidv:

Ballpark cost?

looking at those seams i would just wirebrush them. put some good rust inhibitor paint on them and then paint the rockers and about a inch up the doors black. just make sure you have a nice straight line. after the paint has dried i will spray clear chip guard over the area. people cant even tell i have done it, they just think its factory

Some vehicles, and I think GM's were the worse, have door rot problems. But it has nothing to do with the rest of the car, and infects nothing else. All by itself, it wouldn't worry me. It's ugly, sure. But that's about it.

I can't see the pictures for some reason, but I can imagine it. My guess (without seeing pictures) for a shop to do it would be around $1500-$1700. cutter67 is right on. Clean it up yourself. It won't be perfect and it won't permanently stop the rest from now until eternity, but it'll last probably as long as you keep the truck.

I'd leave it and let the doors rot off. When they don't keep stuff inside the truck, you got your money out if it. Unless your buying it to keep as a project vehicle or to restore it. At most, do some wire brush and paint on the inside of the door.

Use the rust to drive down the sellers price. It's a truck, you should use it as one and expect it to look like it.

I don't mind driving a 10+ year old car, but don't like rust. So, if I can keep it at bay for about three years at a reasonable cost I'll go for it. If not, I'm going to pass.

PeterAK wrote: I don't mind driving a 10+ year old car, but don't like rust.

Well, that pretty much rules out 99.9% of Suburbans.

I'd wire brush it and give the area a quick respray. If it requires more than that, I'd just replace the whole door skin. Probably cheaper than a junkyard door.

Bang him down on the price though because of the horrible rusty doors.

I would wire brush and por 15 the inside. Then get duplicolor to match and shoot it. The outside portion looks to just rust staining and usally will polish off with rubbing compound. I think you could repeat this procedure once a year and keep it at bay.

if you can get a deal on it i would take it.

As lame as this will sound, wipe off the rusty area with some rubbing compound. A lot of the brown is just stains from the water running across the rust. Suddenly it won't look 1/2 as bad as it does now. Do this every month or so and you'll get by for a while. Painting the inner door bottom black with POR or something will buy you some more time. Source a set of doors from down south in a couple more years. It's a common color, you may find a match to avoid having to paint.

Thanks guys. I'm buying it.

in addition to wire brushing and painting over the visible rust, you could also take the interior panels out, hose the door out really good, and spray some Extend rust converter along the bottom of the door, then top that off with some seam sealer or something.. this stops the rust from going any farther... just make sure you keep the drain holes open.

i cleaned my burb up and painted it up to the body molding with spray on bedliner. looked great and did not come back through in a year and a half.