Rust is an absolute menace. It never sleeps and, if left uncured for long enough, will absolutely ruin an otherwise great vehicle. Readers who don’t live in the Rust Belt should consider themselves lucky. Whenever I go to California, I see vehicles that I have not seen in Illinois for at least a decade. Frankly, it never ceases to amaze me. What is the newest vehicle that you’ve seen already rusting away?
It’s very easy to find rust here in Illinois, sadly. Every winter, the state aggressively salts its roads. During some periods, you will drive your car down the road, and despite having your windows closed, you will hear the clear sounds of your tires crushing salt beneath them. Come to Illinois, Michigan, or any salt-laying state that doesn’t have safety inspections, and you’ll see cars so bad that they do not have a single good panel left.
However, at the very least, many of these cars are old enough that their first and maybe second owners have already moved on. Seeing piles of rust isn’t at all surprising to anyone who has lived out here for long enough. What is surprising is seeing relatively new vehicles that are rusty.
The absolute newest vehicle I’ve ever seen with rust is my family’s travel trailer. I’ve written about this camper a lot, but if you’ve somehow missed those stories, this is a 2022 Heartland Mallard M33. My parents bought this trailer new, only three months after it had been built. The day my parents brought it home, I looked at the frame and saw widespread surface rust. Now, three years later, the rust is progressing, as rust tends to do.
The official solution to this problem, at least as recommended by the dealership, is to spray Rust-Oleum Rust Reformer on the frame.
But finding rust on a camper built during the COVID-19 camper boom feels like cheating, so I have another one for you. Something I have always been fascinated by, and I may write a post about it one day, is how quickly and totally a Mercedes-Benz Sprinter van can rust. At least in my experience, first-generation and second-generation Sprinters, which span from 2002 to 2018 in America, rust sooner than Chevy Express vans and Ford E-Series vans and rust out in weirder places.
Drive around the Chicago area for long enough and you’ll spot Sprinter vans absolutely peppered in rust from their rockers all the way up to their roofs, which is impressive. I’ve even seen 2013 and newer Sprinters, which are second-generation models with a facelift, already peppered in rust. It’s not just me, either. There are forum threads of people with Sprinters that were only a few years old at the time, and owners were reporting rust issues.
Thankfully, it seems like Mercedes-Benz might have figured out whatever was causing it, because third-generation Sprinters, which have been around since 2019, seem to be holding up better than their predecessors. Still, I get a bit shocked whenever I see a Sprinter that isn’t even that old that has more rust than paint left.
How about you? What’s the newest vehicle you’ve seen already rusting away?
Top graphic images: Mercedes-Benz; depositphotos.com
Go look under any untreated Toyota 4X4 that’s seen even one winter in a road salt state.
Besides that, I’ve seen 2014-2019 era GM pickups with bubbling bedsides already. To my eyes, those are still fairly new trucks.
This is why I’m now team Blue Oval when it comes to pickups, the aluminum Fords will never have this issue. A coworker has an F150 that predates the AL by a year or two, it’s got bedside cancer too.
CA, and really all of the west coast/southwest, is a wonderland of clean older vehicles. I was in Seattle recently and saw a bunch of vehicles that are largely extinct in New England.
I had a coworker in Minneapolis with an older Tacoma take his truck in for the frame inspection as part of the frame rot recall. They put the truck on the lift and it folded in half. This was before smartphones were a thing, but my coworker caught it with his flip phone camera to show everyone at work. It was wild, considering the truck had less than 70,000 miles on it.
My dad had a coworker that had a similar experience. He took it in for the recall, thinking he was fine because he was meticulous about taking care of it. The tech called him into the service bay, then started punching holes in the frame with a screwdriver.
Many otherwise good running Toyotas got sent to the boneyard for this reason.
I was looking for a 3rd gen for a while, I gave up because even the “clean” ones looked like they came up from the Titanic once I looked underneath.
I was going to say the 2014-19 GM trucks too. I’ve seen a few with rust spreading around the wheel wells and rockers. There’s also a 2011-2016 super duty that I see driving around that looks to have a few years left before it dissolves. I see those as relatively new vehicles still; its also weird to see one rusty one while 5 other nice ones are driving around
“Whenever I go to California, I see vehicles that I have not seen in Illinois for at least a decade. Frankly, it never ceases to amaze me.”
Try heading over to the beach communities, especially ones with a college age population. You’ll see plenty of rust.
Except those rust from the top down, not the bottom up.
I spent 10 years of living 1/2 mile from the ocean in Pacific Beach. The cars I saw carported by the seawall might as well have had Illinois plates. That rust dropped off very quickly though even a few hundred yards further inland.
Ram trucks do pretty bad, I see a lot later 2000s and early 2010s with really bad wheel arches. then they just slap flares and spacers on the wheels
The fairly new ones that I consistently see with rust are Ram trucks. Well, pickups in general, but Rams seem to be the worst.
Rams around the rear wheel arches, GM cab corners and rockers. Basically when amazon and Ebay stock plastic cover pieces for a specific style of vehicle to cover it up with, that is a bad thing.
Frankly we should move to aluminum bodies/chassis for all automobiles.
With how disposable modern automobiles are and with so few modern body shops that actually pull dents there really isn’t an advantage to steel bodies/chassis from the consumer standpoint.
While I do my best to avoid humid climates and face less rust because of it, many people do not and or cannot do so, and heavy salting of the roads in winter exacerbates it.
While I dislike aluminum as a material to a very large degree even I admit that it is the optimal material for modern car bodies/chassis.
It was probably relatively harmless surface corrosion, but I remember having to spray bomb the front axle of a Ram 2500 that was due to go on the stand at an auto show, because having rust nearly at eye level isn’t ideal.
Past that, I remember seeing a first-gen Mazda3 in 2008 that already had Swiss Cheese rear arches, on a car that would’ve still been under its powertrain warranty. Thankfully Mazda seems to have more or less solved their rust problems.
for a couple years in I think 2021 and 2022 we were feeing F150’s straight from the factory with the differential and springs that had a large amount of surface rust. I think it was made into a bit of a stink with new owners and Ford basically said it was fine, and to ignore it. But I don’t see that anymore.
I remember seeing that. Frankly I think that it’s not unreasonable to expect a new car to have no rust on it before sale.
Agree, but that rust IS harmless. Some chassis parts are specifically left bare metal to quickly develop a layer of “protective” surface rust.
I think absolutely no rust isn’t achievable, simply because loads of machined parts under the car aren’t always covered in a layer of paint (or similar).
That being said, I think you are are buying a new car, you should be able to poke your head under it and at least struggle to find much if any rust. Those machined bits I mentioned are relatively small areas typically on suspension components. Things like driveshafts having surface rust on the lot is just a damn shame and should be unacceptable.
And to counter your amazement of seeing cars still on the road when you visit CA, I visited family in Wisconsin last year and was stunned to see vehicles that I still consider “new” in my head with completely rotted out wheel wells. Of course I’m at the age where what my mind thinks of “new” was actually 20 years ago so that’s partly my fault.
I’m already seeing serious rust on some JL Wranglers. Some earlier JKs have completely rusted out by now.
Also, my 2018 Express has some rust starting but I’m hoping dousing it in copious amounts of fluid film will slow the process a bit.
I hope I can move to a rust-free area eventually, I hate seeing this happening to all of my vehicles.
I was going to say the same thing about Wranglers. We had a Wrangler on our lot that’s 3 years old with bubbly rusty paint already. Absurd.
Ha, interesting timing. Living in California I’m not really qualified to answer this, but I’m a product manager for a shock manufacturer and yesterday I was speaking with a colleague about Sprinter shocks. He was working on some cataloging stuff and was having problems with 02-06 Sprinters and asked me for help. I told him I wouldn’t spend much time on them, as even here in California they’re almost extinct, and in the rest of the country they rusted away. I checked VIO (registration) data and there are only like 33K of them on the road compared to like 160K of the next generation van, which I didn’t realize until now was also rust prone.
I’m in MA, which uses more sand than salt, so it’s not as bad (especially compared to a few decades ago when you could almost count on your car eventually being junked for rot). The rotted cars I see today stand out for their relative infrequency and because they seem new to me as my brain lags behind the march of time until I realize the car in question is probably over 15 years old. The last cars I remember rusting heavily and early in large numbers were Mazdas, especially Proteges, 3s, and 6s. My own ’06 3 was only 5 years old when it was just before the stage of rotting, which was about the level of rust protection I’d expect of something built at least 20 years prior. I think cars now are mechanically/electrically junked more often with the common plague of problem transmissions, then engines throughout the industry, along with increased labor costs in both rate and time to cure, plus limited numbers of replacement parts. I do see some rotted cars, but they’re not terribly common and no single vehicle stands out. It seems more like cars of a certain age just thin out on the roads before all but disappearing rather than clattering along leaving a trail of parts behind them. I remember when exhaust shops were everywhere and pieces of such littered the road sides, but not anymore.
I dont know why but Ford Explorer/Edge/Flex the tailgate rust pretty fast in comparison with the other parts of the vehicle, they are not that old.
Chevy Silverado prior 2018 rust very bad on the wheel arches. Chrysler Pacifica the hood has some issues with rust and paint bubbles.
This year I am going to start taking my cars to Krown Rust Control. Anyone has experience with this company?
Great Photoshopping in the topshot!
I’m in Michigan, here’s what I’ve seen:
Ford’s for quite a while were pretty bad, especially rear wheel arches and rocker panels.
Old Mazda’s were atrocious
The hood edge of any Chrysler minivan
Mercedes Sprinters
Toyota trucks and SUV’s
I’ve lived most of my life in the desert southwest. Between the low humidity, little rain, and lack of road salting, it’s pretty rare to see a rusty vehicle. Cracked dashboards, splitting fake leather seats and sun damaged or sand blasted plastic body panels are far more common.
My 2005 Sprinter had the worst paint and prep of any vehicle I’ve owned ( and I’ve had 9 MGs and 3 Jaguars). I finally gave up trying to prevent the windshield aperture from rusting away after replacing the windscreen twice. The edges of sheet metal would show rust spots even in dry summer here in California. I can’t belive they sold these in continental Europe and the Northeast US. They wouldn’t last 5 years!
As the owner of a Chrysler van, I’ve been keeping an eye on the other vans in the area, and can’t help but notice that there’s a corrosion issue with the hoods of these vans. It’s especially noticeable near the ocean in the Northeast.
H & K seem to rust faster than other cars, especially at the back of the wheel wells. Do they use salt in South Korea?
I don’t like realizing that the GMT900 Silverado and Sierra entered production nearly 20 years ago, but they’re currently rusting like the dickens.
Year ago my buddy and I were shopping for 1-2 year old Jeep Wranglers in Minnesota and we crawled under a few at dealerships and saw lots of rust on skid plates and other areas.
Not how quickly it shows up, but how quickly it’s devastating:
It’s insane how many mid 20-teen Silverados and Sierras I see driving around or for sale with giant chunks of their rear fenders missing. Obviously no time or energy was spent trying to make sure those lasted at all.
I chalk that up to stupid design. They leave the fender arches exposed so they’re constantly getting peppered with stones off the tires, then constantly peppered with salt from the road in winter. Even the ones with fender liners still leave the edge of the body exposed. I guess they don’t care if they rust out a few years after the warranty ends, but it’s still pretty terrible.
I think the fender liners were optional? Or on certain trims?
We’re talking about an era where GM was running ads about how you want a steel truck bed to keep people away from Ford and then skimping on $8 of plastic.
These are trucks that you can find running trouble free with 250k miles, but low mileage ones are trading for 4-figures with nothing left to attach an overfender to.
Came to say Sprinter vans as well. And once rust starts somewhere on one, it seems like it spreads everywhere in record time, as if there’s some designed-in self-destruct-by-rust characteristic in Sprinters.
Also F-150 rear wheel arches, particularly ones from the 2010’s, I’d say. So many otherwise decent-looking bodies — not even cab corners going yet — with rear fender arches rusting through or patched-and-primered.
Back in November I had a 2019 silverado that I had to change the oil on the alignment rack back the rear of the frame was shot.
When i moved to Michigan i couldn’t believe i was seeing rust on 1-2 year old cars. Its just a way of life i guess.
Yep lots of rust on 1-2 year old Minnesota cars. Something about the feet of snow over the 6 months/year it snows. Load of road salt and the 100+ degree annual temperature swings.
From my time in SE Michigan, the salt was less than what we often use here in western NY. I think a combo of less snow, more time at temps that the salt isn’t effective, and simply less money to spend salting (and plowing, and road maintenance in general). What I did see a lot of were cars/trucks that you could practically see through because there’s no safety inspection (plus bald tires, torn wipers, and missing brake lights).
Its my own personal conspiracy theory that i’m sure no one has come up with before that the Big 3 in Detroit encourage over salting the roads so the cars rot faster and you have to buy another one. Doesn’t help Detroit has a salt mine nearby…
I don’t know if they’ve gotten any better but every Mazda I had (3 of them) started lightly rusting within 5 years.
They’ve gotten much better about body rust. The fasteners and consumables on the chassis though… not so much. I’m having a hell of a time replacing the sway bar links on my 2017 Mazda3 due to rust on the bolts and nuts. I bought a nut splitter and if that doesn’t do the trick I’ll have to use a die grinder.
They made some major changes in 2020 that seems to have improved their fastener rust problems. We were shopping used CX-5s before we decided to buy new, and the difference when you crawl underneath a 2019 and earlier or a 2020 and later are stark.