It’s done in the factory, not aftermarket or at the dealers. There are no aftermarket rustproofing places still in business because they aren’t needed anymore.
If they’re using less salt or whatever chemical on the roads in MN than in past years, I can’t tell a difference.
Unless you store your car for the winter, you’re pretty much guaranteed to start seeing body rust around the wheel wells at around 8-10 years (in addition to whatever is going on underneath). It’s just a fact of life up here.
One can be diligent about washing their cars but you can’t always wash it when you want unless you have access to a private, heated garage. It often gets cold enough that car wash joints will close for days at a time. And you simply can’t get out the hose and wash a car in the driveway from about mid-November until maybe mid-March or later. If you’re going to wash your car at all during those months, you have to pay for it.
this, exactly. Up until the '70s, cars typically had no rust protection apart from the primer and paint that was sprayed onto it in the paint booth. which means things like the insides of frame rails/subframes and other inaccessible locations were left bare steel. And, because the design tools of the day weren’t what they are now, these same hard to reach places tended to collect water, slush, and other muck (including salt-laden stuff.) Unless you lived in Arizona, cars back then literally started rusting the second they left the dealer. My dad’s '73 Cougar had rust holes in the quarter panels and trunk floor by 1977.
Nowadays, manufacturers assemble the entire body and then send it through multiple stages of submersion treatments. Typically there are stages of something similar to [galvanizing,* then whatever stages of an electrostatic primer dip process. Plus, with modern design and engineering tools, one can minimize or eliminate inaccessible cavities in the body so the corrosion treatments can reach every steel surface whether visible or not.
[url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TtwBe8_4kGw]Here’s a video](http://www.iom3.org/news/ford-motor-company-develops-anti-corrosion-technology) of VW bodies going through part of this process.
thanks to this, even in Michigan it’s not uncommon to see 10-15 year old cars without any visible rust.
That’s not to say they’ll never rust, mind; given enough time and exposure to potential electrolytes even well protected steel will rust.
Here in Vermont lots of people get their cars’ underside “oil undercoated” every fall. Yup, they basically just spray oil on the entire underside of the car. Some places even drill holes in the body and spray oil inside there (they cap the holes).
Is this common anywhere else?
“Waxoyling” cars (after one popular product) used to be fairly common here in the UK. These days it seems to be mostly confined to people who maintain classic cars.
It’s nasty, smelly stuff.
i didn’t see this in previous posts, but much of the “Rustproffing” is using plastic in areas like fender wells instead of steel. As a steelworker this lead to reduced demand for our product.
Plastics are so much better now for certain body parts but they sure are expensive to replace 
I am on year 15 with my 4X4 pickup that has 300K and am wondering when the floorboards are going to open?? back in the 70’s i drove lots of 10 year old vehicals with floorboard holes.
Not to derail at all, but I’d be surprised if a 2001 S-10 weren’t a rusted out mess. GM had lots of finish issues with their 90s cars that I’m sure carried over to last decade (look for the GM cars of the 90s with pealing/missing exterior paint).
Seriously, that vehicle example is a terrible data point to go by.
This brought back some memories. Yes, it is true that today’s cars last much longer-mostly because of galvanized steel body panels. Years ago, I knew a guy who had his new Fiat “rustproofed” …by a company called “Ziebart”. What this was , was a technician would drill holes into the body panels, rocker panels, etc. Then, they would inject a mixture of waxes, oils, and filler into the holes-it was supposed to coat the steel. It actually INCREASED the rusting, as it trapped water inside. Ziebart had a lousy warranty-if your car rusted, you got your money back.
I did have a car that rusted out – after 20 years. Other than that, rust doesn’t seem to be a particular problem around here. I’ve seen far more rusted cars in Florida, where the conditions are salty and hot year round.
I remember that in the 60’s and 70’s in Toronto, a vehicle tended to rust within a few years, thanks to the salt used on roads in the winter, much like the US northeast. A 10-year-old car could have rust eating holes in the bottom of the doors, the floorboards, etc.
I went out to the prairies for a few years about 1980, and was absolutely amazed by the number of relatively old vehicles that were close to pristine condition. I was told it was due to the winters - below about 0F salt is a waste of time, so a lot less salt was used on the roads.
That’s not to say rust didn’t happen. I heard many tales of prairie schooners with a plywood floor covering the holes. One fellow told of being pulled over by the police, who found no open beer in the car; but when they pulled away, they had been parked over several empty beer bottles.
My parents had a 68 Jaguar, and by the mid-80’s they were driving down the marvellous New York roads one day and one of the rear leaf springs collapsed due to rust. A mechanic managed to jury-rig a replacement, but when they moved back to Canada a year later, the vehicle was denied certification because the whole underside was rusted to crap.
Modern cars are much more rust-resistant, thanks IIRC to moves by the Japanese car makers concerned more than Detroit about real continuous product improvement. Of course, as Gbro mentions, a lot of parts are immune to rust. Also, rust tended to start in places where holes were drilled in the body - door locks, antenna, side mirror mounts, etc. Nowadays, those holes are predrilled before the body is treated and painted. Plus, the body is now the “frame” so structural integrity is more critical. Plus, in the case of antenna and side mirrors, new design has obviated the need for holes.
Here is a map of states that use salt and those that don’t.
Here in Oregon they will spray a deicer that contains magnesium chloride and a rust inhibitor on the roads. This helps keep ice from building up and helps to dry the road.
I hate when they put sand/gravel on the roads, it just sells replacement windshields and little else.
Actually, they are, they just focus on classic cars. I’m not running any old cars right now (though my motorcycles are 25 and 35 years old) but I still get flyers from Zeibart.
I know an idiot who bought a pickup from Upstate New York and drove it out west.
So far, the brake system rusted out and failed. The exhaust system rusted out and failed. The rear bumper rusted off! Ended up having to cut and replace all kinds of hardware when it came time to do some transmission work because everything was such a rusty mess under there.
The kicker? We live in one of the most rust-free areas in the US! Dry, hot summers and they don’t salt the roads. Fool could have bought one local and saved money, time and trouble.
But he has a long, long history of increasingly poor decision-making.
I can’t speak for all of the Mountain West, but in Bozeman, it routinely got so cold that salt wouldn’t even work. At that point, you might as well not bother and just go with the cheaper sand. Or nothing at all, for that matter: Most folks just took it for granted that ice was just another possible road surfacing material, and learned to drive on it.
One of my Daley-era peeves was that he spent millions adding landscaping to the middle of Lake Shore Drive, then lowered the winter speed limit to reduce the amount of salt damaging the landscaping. Of course, they soon made it 40mph year round to save money changing the signs, and due to workers maintaining the landscaping all the freaking time. So we get to spend millions making one the most scenic roads in the city slower, more congested, and marginally more attractive.