satur9poet

Hey all! I just brought my new Pony home from the dealership yesterday.

It's going to be my daily driver, which means: Snow. Salt. Slush. General road unpleasantness. Yuck!

I'm thinking of having it rustproofed to keep it looking as fabulous as it does now, but after poking around on yellowpages.com, there aren't many places in the NE Ohio area that do undercoating. I am thinking of going with Ziebart. They also do window tint, and I'm toying with the idea of getting my windows tinted as well.

Another thing to consider is the fact that I have the balance of the original warranty on the car, plus an extended warranty. Would rustproofing void the warranties?

What do you guys recommend? (And no, garaging it isn't an option!)

07 Stang

If you look under your car now you will see rust already on your pipes. From what I was told, it causes a natural barrier to help protect the steel. I could see where you would be concerned about salt on the road from snowy winter driving. Salt definitely will eat through your car.

As far as tint, you need moleskin to put on your driver and passenger side or you will end up with tint that has been scratched. Do a search on the main 2005-210 forum on Moleskin and you can learn all about it.

157dB

+1 on the mole skin mod.

Jegs or Summitt sells undercoating kits.
Do it now while its pristeen under there
or the undercoating will not stick well
because of minor road grime/salt/dirt.

pascal

It might be a pain but maintenance is your best weapon to combat salt...
As soon as you get home after a ride on salty roads, if you have the discipline, you can rinse down the whole car with a garden hose...
Get your fender wells real good and as much as you can under the car (not easy, I know).
That will slow down the salt bite by a lot...

satur9poet

Interesting. I never heard of moleskin; I'll be sure to check that out before committing to anything. As for the warranty thing, I guess I should give the dealership a call.

satur9poet

Today I talked to the service manager at the dealership about rust-proofing and I wonder if anyone can confirm or deny his claim that Mustangs are already undercoated at the factory and have a sealed underbody, so rust-proofing isn't necessary. He said rust-proofing wouldn't void the warranty, but I didn't know about any factory sealing...

157dB

Crawl under and take a look. Its sad to say the least.
Its just a body shell dipped in thin greenish primer.
No body color paint of any sorts under there.
Just a thin layer of primer keeping the rust away.
The suspension components are painted black.
The driveshaft and the rear end are not coated
with anything except a fine layer of rust...
So, no there is no special 'factory undercoating'
to speak of. If it was, you can bet that Ford would
be touting it on every sales flyer and commercial....
Have him show you the 'factory undercoating' in
print and not just rolling off of his tounge at leisure
without the facts to back up his 'claims'.

Most dealer applied 'rustproofing' in years of past consisted
of spraying some black tar like substance on the underside
body panels but not really keeping the water/salt/road grime
out of the nooks and crannies to prevent rust from forming
but it sure took about $200 out of the new vehicle owners
and put it into the salesmens pockets...

07 Stang

My husband's cousin used to work for a Ford dealer and he said they never sprayed undercoating but did charge the customers. One lady got smart and took her key and scraped the wheel well. When she went back to pick up her car after they said they sprayed it, she checked and there was still her scraped key mark! She pointed it out and they were very embarrassed!

satur9poet

Thanks for confirming my suspicions. I had a feeling that either the undercoating was minimal at best or totally nonexistant. I will take the car to Ziebart or some other place and pay for some ACTUAL rust-proofing!

pascal

And also, don't listen to morons that work at a Ford dealership...