The Rust of your car is life
A CAR TAKES more punishhment than probably any other consumer durable.
It runs hot and cold, gets dented and chipped, is expoosed to rain, hail, sleet and, worst of all, de-icing salt commpounds spread on the roads.
Furthermore, the steel of which a car is chiefly 'made is required to survive an enviironment that is increasingly alien to it; that is, the corrrosive chemicals spreading in the air. Indeed, it's not too fanciful to say that we and our cars have to live in an atmosphere that gets rustier every week.
Another card stacked
against the automobile is the relative ignorance of the aveerage motorist. Although we become shrewder consumers all the time, few of us judge a car by anything other than its appearance, immediate commforts and basic performance.
Hardly anybody assesses a car's resistance to rust which, probably more than anything else, decides the investment's eventual worth.
It's usually naive to ask a salesman about a car's rusttproofing. Either he doesn't know, which is most likely, or he won't tell you.
Rust is a cancer which all motorists can do a lot to preevent. It develops usually where you can't see it - on the inside. Salt, slush, mud and moisture - all strongly corrosive agents - develop in crevices such as inside the bumpers, underneath the car and within door creases.
A well-made car will reeveal extra paint protection in these rust-prone areas. Motor Manufacturers, who assemble Mazdas in Dublin, hand-spray, as well as dip, these vulnerrable parts. (See, however, the case history of the new Mazda 323-owner.)
Watch for overlapping body panels, for instance, where the air doesn't flow freely. Likewise, even on new cars, check that there's plenty of paint where different, perrhaps hostile, metals come innto contact. In this category come bolted and screwed parts such as the hinges on tailgates.
Even brand-new cars sold in Ireland reveal on close innspection a positively miserly attitude toward paint in the parts a customer doesn't usuually see; but that's where rust starts.
To be fair, most manufaccturers these days are highly rust-conscious. Fiat, for insstance, who got a bad reputattion here for rust, have extennded their warranty to cover corrosion. Even so, rustproofing is a complex science and even within Europe carrmakers differ widely on the best treatment. (In the USA, where rust-resistant techniiques are the furthested, Detroit's giants tend toowards zinc-coated steel on the rust-prone lower parts of the car.)
Manufacturers depend to a large extent on the owner's diligence. A once-weekly wash, especially in dirtycrusted corners, undoubtedly lengthens a car's life. Use a mild soap and lukewarm or cold water.
Driving close behind other cars shortens your investtment's lifetime because chips from stones damage the painttwork and, often invisibly, rust eats away underneath the cosmetics. (Other, more tanngible advantages derive from leaving a safe distance behind other cars.)
Never, but never, leave the car, cossetted and pampered, in a specially heated garage. Centrally-heated garages rust cars fifteen times faster than if they had been left outtdoors. For the same reason a garage that doubles as a launndry, thereby heating the air, accelerates corrosion. Much better to leave the car outside in the cold, which slows down rust, or in an airy carrport. A car just doesn't need its own Taj Mahal. Instead convert that valuable real esstate into a rumpus room or something equally practical.
Repair scratches, dents or chips as quickly as possible. Lastly, crawl underneath your car and examine the underbody's condition. The experience will probably startle you into action.
General Motors, among others, recommend that owners wash underneath the car, especially in winter when salt lodges rapidly.
If you have bought a new car, done your bit to look after it and still the thing rusts, take it back to the dealler as quickly as possible. If he's not interested, there is another little-known remedy of last resort. Within the Innstitute for Industrial Research and Standards is a consumer complaint department.
If, having followed up the complaint, the Institute's metallurgical boffins think you have a case, the manuufacturer will usually capituulate. It's hard to argue against solid scientific data .•
RUST PROOFERS
IN SPITE OF everything the anti-corrosion techniques, a manufacturers say about their lot of motorists fail to reveal
MAKE RUSTPROOFING COMPANY INTERNAL EXTERNAL
TREATMENT TREATMENT
COST INCL. COSTINCL.
10 PER CENT 10 PER CENT
VAT VAT
FIAT 127 BODYSHIELD £93.50 £34.10
NATIONAL CENTRE £70.40 £27.50
RUSTPROOFING IRELAND £71.50 £22.00
FORD CORTINA BODYSHIELD £99.00 £38.50
NATIONAL CENTRE £79.20 £31.90
RUSTPROOFING IRELAND £82.50 £27.50
RENAULT 16 BODYSHIELD £105.60 £38.50
NATIONAL CENTRE £77.00 £31.90
RUSTPROOFING IRELAND £93.50 £29.70
JAGUAR XJ6 BODYSHIELD £172.70 £48.40
NA TlONAL CENTRE £115.50 £39.60
RUSTPROOFING IRELAND £104.50 £38.50