Rust can’t be stopped, but you can slow it down
Unless your daily transport never sees a Canadian winter road (or even late fall or early spring, for that matter) it’s rusting. It was rusting the day you drove it home new off the lot, it’s rusting now, and it will continue to rust until you trade it in.
No amount of technology, be it miracle plug-in sacrificial anode devices or the best chemistry in corrosion sprays, will stop this. They may slow things down, but rust continues its march.
About the only things the average vehicle owner can do is attend to surface intrusions through the paint and opt for some type of anti-corrosion treatment.
PATCHING PITTED PAINT
Taking periodic care of stone chips and small scratches is a relatively easy and painless process, best done just after a car wash, when they’re visible and clean. Handle them with the standard touch-up paint pen available from the dealership.
A couple of tips: For deep chips, don’t try to fill the mark all at once. Do it in layers, letting each coat dry thoroughly before applying the next.
For lighter-coloured vehicles, make sure your touch-up pen has a separate compartment and applicator brush for the clear coat finish. If not, buy a separate pen. Lighter colours, especially silver, look completely different until the clear coat is applied (at least one week after the colour repair is completed).
To make the repair almost invisible, after a few days, apply and work in a small dab of regular car wax to smooth out the touch-up.
SELECTING A SPRAY
For anti-corrosion treatments, you really can’t beat annual sprays done by a qualified shop. Yes, it means seasonal appointments, and unless it’s done during the cooler periods of late fall or early spring, you may have to deal with some drips on your driveway. And as you may have noticed from checking out the rides of some of your fellow commuters, rust treatment sprays permanently attract dirt, leaving telltale stains at lower body panel edges. They’re easily cleaned up with a little rubbing alcohol and elbow grease.
If you’ve left things too long and you’re dealing with a larger patch of corrosion or even some perforation, nothing you can do in your driveway is going to look correct. You’ll have to consider heading to a body shop for an assessment and estimate.
By the time corrosion shows, the paint will have faded several shades lighter, so your shop will recommend a complete repaint. You’ll want to know the condition of the underbody, floor panels and any metal structural components before you proceed.