Fastest rusting vehicle?

Hyundai Pony and Stellars

Apexcarver wrote: any datsun?

Another vote for anything Datsun. They came off the boat with rust and it never stopped.

Pretty much anything built before the late '80's will rust quick. The steel just wasn't corrosion resistant, except for maybe Porsche's 'Zincrometal'. The newer high strength steels won't rust as quickly because of the added alloy metals but they will still rust. An example of how much better steels have gotten: I used to see exhaust stuff replaced all the time on cars 2 or 3 years old here in the South. Now, I never see rusty exhaust any more.

I saw a 2002 Eclipse the other week that had large chunks of underbody U-channel missing from rust.

That's from a '96 Sunfire. Notice the lack of a support on the passenger side - it stayed attached to the car. We didn't even notice until we tried dropping the subframe to make changing the brake lines easier.

As a rule of thumb, though, if it's foreign, it rusts fast. If it's American, it also rusts fast, but there's more steel there so it stays together longer...

I haven't worked on any NSXs but we are seeing problems with the aluminum Audis losing their trunk floors. The spare tire well is a piece of plastic set into a hole in the back.

Any car driven on salted roads. Even those with composite outer panels.

New cars might be a bit better at resisting rust than the older ones were, but my dad's '07 Fusion is showing rust bubbles on all the subframe welds and some paint bubbles on the trunklid. Nice reward for the $800 new car premium corrosion protection at the dealer.

dan_efi wrote: Any car driven on salted roads. Even those with composite outer panels.

+1 on salted roads, also ANY older pickup on salted roads. If I didn't fail at pixors on the board, Id snap a few of my dad's '93 F-150. It didn't help that the P.O. had Mako spray right over the rust.

I have seen an early Saturn loose it's K-frame to rust and stick together with a wing and a prayer...

Those are all good, but anyone who's owned an IH Scout will tell you they are the worst. I've owned two. One of them, the body rusted off the floorpan (or what was left of the floorpan) and fell down on the tires.

The insides of the body panels had no paint, no primer, no nothing. The frames were at least beefy, but had nothing either.

Apexcarver wrote: any datsun?

agreed, I think they applied the rust at the factory

FIAT 850. Hands down

Ok so, now to turn this thread constructive. How do you keep your vehicle rust free. when I lived in rochester, frequent washing was my weapon.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QtuOw3qsw0

Don't drive it in the winter if they lay salt on the roads.

Don't ever park it over grass overnight.

ignorant wrote: Ok so, now to turn this thread constructive. How do you keep your vehicle rust free. when I lived in rochester, frequent washing was my weapon.

Move south.

Junkyard_Dog wrote:

ignorant wrote: Ok so, now to turn this thread constructive. How do you keep your vehicle rust free. when I lived in rochester, frequent washing was my weapon.

Move south.

I did.

curtis73 wrote: Those are all good, but anyone who's owned an IH Scout will tell you they are the worst. I've owned two. One of them, the body rusted off the floorpan (or what was left of the floorpan) and fell down on the tires. The insides of the body panels had no paint, no primer, no nothing. The frames were at least beefy, but had nothing either.

Another Vote for the International Harvester ... Rusted befor they left the assembly line. as a bonus if they stayed togeather they never stopped running ... I sent one to the junkyard that I was afraid if I slammed the door hard on the drivers side would colapse. Years later I needed a part off the same scout and it was still rusting away ... paid more for the driveshaft then they paid me for the whole thing!

Jeff

My one scout has been sitting in a field since 1981. It is a pile of rust, but despite being abandoned for a full 27 years, I changed the oil, put a battery in it, dumped some gas in the carb and it fired instantly. I kept it running for a little with some gas in the bowl and oil pressure rose right to 65 psi.

I'm taking that engine out and putting a 4BT in its place, but now I know I can get some cash for the old binder motor.