Who Has Rust?

[nismo]

Jus throwin da question out. Who here has rust already on their car because I have 2 spots. One on my roof and right above the passenger front door.Inder

[kostby]

One tiny spot under the rear popup window weatherstrip.

[nismo]

You can actually take that to Pontiac and they will fix that. I will have to see about mine though. They're a$$holes here in Detroit. Worst service department ever.Inder

[ColonelPanic]

Same with mine, kostby... It wasn't too bad, so they just kinda sanded it down a little and slapped some touch-up paint on it. Of course, the paint didn't match, so when I got the car back home, I slapped on some of my Neptune touch-up paint over top of it. Not like it mattered since it is completely out of view, but anyway... lol Uh yeah, it needed another coat - that's it. I need to take off my plate and see how the hatch is holding up. Unfortunately, I had a pretty good amount of rust in and around the bolt holes. Touched that up, but probably needs another coat. That's the worst area of rust I have so far. The paint is already bubbling up under the bolt holes from the rust, so it's probably too late to really do anything about it.

[nismo]

That's the first time that I've heard of rust around the holes on the license plate bolts. O well.Inder

[ColonelPanic]

Yeah, my car's pretty whacked out compared to the majority... I tend to have some strange problems... lol

[nismo]

Yeah. Like January through like April, I had the worst luck with my car. It was in the shop every week for somethin. Man, those Service guys know me by my first name now! That's horrible.Inder

[Merzbow]

just the two spots under the wheatehr stripping, and a spot on the edge of the right side rear door...while washing it last week I thought it was some left over wax that I missed, but with closer inspection i found out it was a chip and was rusting. It's not noticiable unless the door is open and you look at it from like 3 inches away, but I know it's there so that's bad enough lol.

[Psychovibe]

Its Too new for rust. Had it 6 weeks and only 500 Miles

[nismo]

you have no idea how jealous i am of u right now. My car is no where near good condition. It's got sooo many problems. I gotta go to the Pontiac body shop next to my house and ***** at em for 2 hours so i can get what i want done for my car.Inder

[ToolGuy]

No rust anywhere. Any chip it gets is touched up immediately.

[nismo]

Right now., I'm lookin at 3 rust spots. This really bums me out man Inder

[ToolGuy]

Do you have pics, I am curious. Did something hit the area to start the rust? I used to have a friend at a Pont dlr but he is now at a Chevy dlr, could have helped you out maybe. Sorry to hear about it...

[nismo]

Not at the moment. But, I can get the pictures in like 15 minutes. I am at home, so I can do that.Inder

[nismo]

The spots aren't really that noticeable, but I still hate the fact that I have rust on car that's only a year old.Here's the pictures:

[nismo]

R u serious? I didn't know that one.Inder

[nismo]

But r u sure that GM won't screw me over like they do everyone else on this forum?Inder

[ToolGuy]

OK, those are not really bad in my terms. Looks like a stone or something caused that. The dlr probably will not do anything for you on those since it is not rusting from the underside of the body panel. Do not worry though... You really need to get them touched up. Go to the parts store and get touch up primer, paint and clear. The store may even sell a kit to scrape the rust out. You will need to scrape the rust out of the spot with something first. I have seen spots like those on other cars and usually the primer and paint around the spot prevents it from spreading. Once your spot is clean and down to rust free metal, prime the spot. After it dries paint it once. Bulid up the coats of color by painting more then once, possibly for a few days once or twice each day. Clear goes on last. You will have to look at your spot closely and make sure the rust is not under the paint and bubbling as well. If so the job will be bigger if you start. From the looks of it the chip started and then if your car is parked outside, it gets more rain water then normal, therefore it rusts easier. Yours do not look that bad but get the touch up and get them covered quickly. I used to detail cars in college and have seen lots of chips like these.

[ToolGuy]

Quote, originally posted by silverawd26 »I would let the damn thing rust and take it in when it is rusted through... 5 year rust through warranty.... Nope will not do any good. You can try though. That warranty is when the rust is coming from the underside of the body panel, thus will eventually rust through.

[ToolGuy]

Oil is a ghetto solution and for parts like under the hood. Prime and paint them, this will work I have done it for years. And will look better then oil dripping down on the paint and leaving a film. Oh and the paint issue will probably not result in every single Vibe with a repaint. Years ago in the early 1990's GM repainted a bunch of cars due to bad primer. Y ou may remember the ones, mostly silver and elec blue, whoes paint was flaking off in large pieces but not rusting. GM painted a lot of those cars and I knew a guy with a Z28 that got a repaint. The vibe paint is not the same thing.

[ToolGuy]

He, He, Funny site, I will have to check it out! Sand blast is the best for large areas that is. These are not and are rusting at a slow rate since they are exposed to the elements. Scrape or sand if you can do it without making it larger, Dremel tool may work for detailed sanding/scraping. These are chips the size of pencil erasers or smaller. Oh well, to each their own, I can only speak from experiance. I would get them covered as a first choice.

[GT-X]

I had a spot of rust on the back tailgate were the weather seal is around the cut out. You have to open just the glass and look along the bottom edge of the openning the lift up and the weather stripping. I had a spot the size of a dime bubbling up threw the paint, had it all re-painted no questions asked. And at the Michigan Meet in June I think it was Jeff that was going around and taking pictures of different members cars who had rust after I brought it to his attention. So look on the tail gate too you'll probably have rust there also

[MikeReilly]

My neighbors in an old neigborhood were auto body people (father and son). They helped me out whenever I was working on fixing up an old vehicle. One of the pieces of advice they had for small dings like this was to get a small broken drill bit and use that to dig out the rust from tiny dings like that. The procedure goes something like this:- use the broken drill bit to drill out the surface rust. Don't apply a lot of pressure, just let the spinning drill do it's thing.- apply some naval jelly. This acts as a reducing agent to de-oxidize the metal. Remove with a damp cloth.- use the drill to drill out any spots that come out black from the naval jelly.- repeat the last 2 steps until you don't see any more black spots.- fill with putty (not bondo or similar, the putty does a nice job on small finishing).- sand- primer and paint. Feather it in. There are some other little tricks, but I don't remember them right now. Hope someone can fill in the blanks.A bit of clear coat over top is a very good idea. Friend of mine suggested that I pay to get an extra clear coat on my Vibe when it's delivered.

[fjf511]

None yet knock on plastic

[simon]

After I'd had my vibe for about 12 months I had rust on the small piece of bodywork above the rear hatch. The dealer removed it and fixed the problem, resprayed and installed it the following weekend. It looked a little strange for a week with a panel missing. That's the only major rust problem I've had and this will be my Vibe's third winter and I've got 96,000km on the clock.Apart from that I have had a few little spots from stone chips that I've patched with a paint stick and some of the steel bolts that hold various parts of the car together have rusted a little.I live in Nova Scotia, it's one of the worst places for rust as we get so many freeze/thaw cycles and use more salt on the roads than anywhere else I know.

[JohnC]

Just two rock chips in the hood have rust forming, I didn't get the touch up paint on em soon enough.

[ColonelPanic]

I have a few spots I need to address as well, before they have to start throwing down salt. In addition to rock chips, I've also got *gasp* a scratch (just down to the primer) about an inch long on the hood... Gotta take care of that too, somehow... I also need to take a look at some of the problem areas I've had and see how they're "progressing" (if they are...)