TheMarco

So here goes: My car looks great. From 5 foot or more. When you get closer however there's a handful of tiny chips with some rust and two slightly larger spots (1-2 square inch max I think).

The two most troublesome spots are one on my passenger side door (this one is pretty bad, the paint is off for about a quarter-size area and it's starting to flake) and another bubbling area on the side near the rear window (this area still has the paint on it)


I went to a body shop to have them take a look at it and they pretty much told me it's best to just leave it alone unless I want to repaint the entire car and have the rust cut out with metal welded back in etc. The works.
I'm in CA and rust doesn't progress very fast here fortunately.

The problem is I just don't have 8-10k sitting around to have this done, even though I'd love to.

So... what do I do? Leave it? Touch up the spots a bit? Only attack the worst spots?

As said, redoing the whole thing with new pieces welded in and the whole shebang is what would be best but.... I just don't have the money.

Any clever ideas?

rst08tierney

The question is how much money can/want you spend?

Is your car a DD?

Garaged?

Since the car sounds like it needs work, I would address the problem areas and live with the work in progress look, if not, like the body shop said, dont touch it until you have the money.

TheMarco

What is a DD? And yes I do keep it garaged. It doesn't get wet often, if ever.

And as said, it's not so much about wanting to spend but more about ability to spend
I'm mostly concerned about making sure it won't get worse and have it reasonably looking. Maybe I'll just have to live with it. I'll take some pics tomorrow to show the problem areas.

TheMarco

Just realized you meant daily driver probably. Yes I do drive it most days. I never intended / needed it to look like a show car because I got it to drive it rather than just look at it. It doesn't need to be 'perfect' at this point but of course I want it to be as nice as possible.

rst08tierney

If your in California and the cars garaged, the rust might not get too much worse then it already is if you do not wash the car with a hose. Use quick detailers to clean the car to prevent the rust from spreading rapidly, in the mean time and just enjoy driving the pony.

Rust issues cost lots of $$$$ and if not done properly, they will come right back so its pointless to half *** it if you just dont have the money. So all in all there really is no cheap fix.

Good luck

andrewmp6

If it was me i would save up get the rust fixed then save tell i could get a ok paint job on it.

THUMPIN455

What would I do about two small spots of rust? I never had a car with only two small spots of rust. I would repair it myself if it bothered me that much, and repaint the entire car. Things like that have a way of snowballing into a much larger project. With $8k-$10k I could rebuild everything on it including paint it.

The best way to fix it is take the paint off the bad areas, and weld new metal in. If you just put something over it, the rust will speed up and make an even larger hole. So leave it or start sanding..

ThanksDad

My baby is a weekend driver with about $4-6,000 in rust damage. I did what
i had to do and used bondo and fiberglass and rattle can to cover it. Wife 2 kids in college and a mortgage my baby is my hobby and I spend what I can justify. I won't ever win best in show and drool over the ones that do. I would do what you can now and decide later on if you want to spend the big bucks

TheMarco

I've been thinking of going the bondo-route with the passenger side door which is by far the most visible spot. The reason being that once I do get to go for a full overhaul I'd probably replace the whole door rather than fixing the rust on it. Let me know if I'm wrong with this but it seems the cheaper route to find a door without rust and paint it with the rest of the car rather than trying to rust-repair the existing door. In the meanwhile it could probably look nicer than it does now with the bondo.

Stupid? Smart? Any thoughts?

P.S. ThanksDad I am in a similar situation. Younger kids but still... a family is expensive and comes before car-related expenses

TheMarco

Ok as promised I took some pics.

1: This isn't really even rust I don't think. It's more like paint chips. There's a bunch of them.



2: Small but nasty looking (trunk lid corner)



3: Bubbles. Worrysome area but cosmetically not YET too ugly



4: Doesn't really look like rust to me either but the paint is off here



5: By FAR the most worrysome and ugly spot: lower corner of the passenger side door. This is the only spot you actually see if you're not paying really close attention. I really want to do SOMETHING about this...



The spots look bigger than they really are on the photos. Still the door bit is really worrysome to me and probably also the bubble bit.

So I'm thinking to do this:

1: Bondo job on the door bit for now. Replace the door at some point when I have more money for it.
2: Gently sand and then touch up the chippy bits.

About the bubbly bit I'm not sure. Grind, rust preventive coating and touchup? Or leave it alone for now?

This is all very similar like ThanksDad for me. The car is my baby, I'd love to make her perfect but I just can't pour in all that money right now.