Asking for a friend. What cars hold up better to the pernicious over-seasoning of roads in the wintertime?
Asking for a friend. What cars hold up better to the pernicious over-seasoning of roads in the wintertime?
Ones that are stored over the winter.
But more to your point, anything with aluminum underneath helps the cause. My BMW has a bunch underneath, and it hasn't been the rust nightmare it could have been.
Volvos.
Woody (Forum Supportum) said:Volvos.
Came here to say that, too.
Just a little more info: We'd be talking new cars, as opposed to used. This chap is partial to sedans, so in today's market, that's going to limit him rather severely. Also favors practical above all. Little desire for sporty. Even less for luxury. The mere suggestion of a battery-powered car would probably throw him into an apoplectic rage.
BoxheadTim said:Woody (Forum Supportum) said:Volvos.
Came here to say that, too.
X3. My son has a 2009 S40 that has tons of issues, failing clearcoat and 140k all-Michigan miles. I was just underneath it on Tuesday night and there's not a speck of rust anywhere. It's pretty amazing to me.
Cars that get ran through the automatic car wash every couple of weeks in winter.
Seriously. It's not that hard to keep a newer car from rusting away in my experience. Wife's Kia Sedona. Purchased new in September 2016. Drove all winter through the snow, slush and hell of Pittsburgh's overly salted roads. Wife takes it through the car wash, not religiously by any means, and the thing is amazingly clean underneath.
My 2007 Silverado. I bought it from a company in 2015 and it had never been washed. Ever. Inside or out. The wheels wells and rockers were already rotten. Frame rusted nearly in two by summer 2021.
Corvettes.
My E46 lived 14 years between northern NJ and norther DE, and didn't have a speck of rust on it except for literal surface rust. I haven't seen it since I sold it almost 6 years ago. It may well still be fine.
I'll just add that time will tell going forward. The brines they apply to the roads now to "pre-treat" ahead of storms seem to be way more aggressive than plain road salt of 10 or so years ago.
1988RedT2 said:Just a little more info: We'd be talking new cars, as opposed to used.
I'll be able to give you an answer in five to ten years 
I know the answer is not Mazda. Had a CX3 last week that rusted the sending units off of the fuel tank. (How does regular washing help prevent that?) I have seen 2019s with rust at every spot weld in the pinch weld area. It's a real shame because the cars are awesome to drive, they're just... ephemeral.
Toyotas are not much better. Honda does seem to have it going on in the past ten years, so maybe a new Honda?
For certain, cars today are light years ahead of a couple decades ago. When I started working on cars, it was a rule of thumb that you never tried to lift a car over four years old by its jacking points, or they would collapse.
Talking new cars, most anything as long as you take decent care of it. Wash it at least once a month through winter (including/especially the underside), maybe some fluid film or similar if you're feeling like an overachiever, and I'd expect just about anything to be good for 100k miles without any real rust issues.
But the answer is porsche
Mclaren f1.
Corvette z06.
That carbon fiber tubbed little alfa.
How far into the rust belt are we talking? I had a customer just trade in his 2018 Sierra because it was going to have holes in the rockers repaired before the next inspection. My 2011 is just getting its first set of rockers now because someone undercoated it (rust check brand). I don't mean just spraying it on . It's like any process a good shop will drill holes to get the product inside. Remove tail lights , partially remove fender liners....in short it's as much about the person applying the rustproofing as the product itself.
I would run away from a new Mazda up here unless stored in the winter , we see them rusted out by the time people are done their 6-7 year payments. Same with jeeps (not an issue for your sedan loving friend).
Toyotas still seem to hold up better than most up here. Honda/Kia/Hyundai are all similar. Better than Mazda but still not uncommon to see them with holes in quarters and rockers before 7-8 years have passed.
Where I am (north of northern Maine in New Brunswick) the single biggest thing that takes vehicles off the road is rust.
If I were buying new the first stop I would make is to get the vehicle undercoated heavily. Then continue that at least once a summer.
In reply to 1SlowVW :
Northwest Joisey. The roads get salted when the forecast hints at a chance of flurries.
Nissans are unusually good at resisting rust. My 2007 G35 was a northern car its whole life and didn't have a speck on it when I sold it in 2020.
In reply to chaparral :
Interesting. I believe the car that is prompting this question is a 2010-ish Nissan Altima 3.5 SR. There appears to be substantial rusting around the rear suspension.
chaparral said:Nissans are unusually good at resisting rust. My 2007 G35 was a northern car its whole life and didn't have a speck on it when I sold it in 2020.
Maybe they paid better attention to the G35. I will admit to not having seen many issues with those (and the G37/Q-series models, Q40/Q50?) aside from horrendous exhaust rot, but I have seen Altimas with carpet hanging through the floor after four years.
That in itself is unusual, as the floors are usually the best part of a car anymore. Rockers and seams rot all to heck and back, but the floors seem to hang on. Maybe they had some QC issues? It was always the passenger side, too, in a specific area.
One weird thing with the G35 is that the cowl area drains through gaps in the spot welded sheetmetal. When that plugs up with crud, the cowl then drains into the car. Took a while to figure that one out the first time.
As a lifelong resident of the west coast, I have to admit that this is a morbidly fascinating discussion.
Everything rusts. All of them. Including Corvettes and DeLoreans. Those just rust on the steel inner structure.
You want a late model car without rust? Buy one somewhere down south.
In reply to Noddaz :
DeLoreans suck because stainless steel galls. And heat makes it worse.
I feel that I need to speak up in defense of Toyota, in spite of the whole frame rust debacle.
The body of my 2005 Tacoma was surprisingly rust free when I traded it in at 13 years old and 200k miles. Sure, the fasteners, brackets and hard lines underneath were getting pretty crusty, but all body panels, floors and rockers were like new. And this was a truck that lived its life outside and plowed snow.
I was never obsessive about washing it, but I did make a habit of at least rinsing it really well when it was salty. It was never undercoated.
The key is to undercoat them as soon as you get them home. A buddy of mine has two full size 7.3 diesel F350s a 7.3 diesel van. Not only did he undercoat them when they were new, but he also sprays the under side every year with a coat of used engine oil. They are all still immaculate. The van has over 300,000 miles, and the srw 350 is a plow truck that he uses to plow the towns roads. My 07 F350 on the other hand is almost ready for the crusher. Still runs great at 275,000 miles but the rust is going to take it out real soon.
All the Porsche 944 I have had have remarkable good at not rusting.
dean1484 said:All the Porsche 944 I have had have remarkable good at not rusting.
Porsche figured out good rustproofing some time in the early 80s.
I was speaking with a 924/944 enthusiast (he had like ten of them at the time) and voiced my desire for an '80 924. He said no, you want a 944, 924s rust and 944s don't.
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