Near terminal rust under 2004 Yaris?

[sproutdreamer]

When I started preparing the Yaris for the MOT I became aware that it was pretty rusty undernieth. It took me back to the 60s and 70s when terminal rotting was common. Anyway I replaced the springs all round and shock absorbers rear and shoes - all advisories last MOT only 2K miles ago but I was a bit concerned about all the rust. The MOT advisoriestoday  read pretty well that rear crossbeam, floor, chassis box sections were all pretty well rusted and the guy who did the test said to be careful not to spend too much money on it!

Even at 14 years old I had expected better of Toyota than this. My Avensis at 10 years old is immaculate under and looks good for another 10. Perhaps the car coming from Glasgow was exposed to much more salt than in the NW? Am I expecting to much at 14?

[MRichards]

Some of them do go like that, there's a bit of rust starting to appear on one of my sills which I'm planning to treat this summer. TSports seems to commonly have rusty fuel pipes (look at MoT histories of 10 of them and I'd put money that you'd see advise/failure for this reason). Yeah I guess it depends the sort of life your Yaris has led - salt not been removed from the underside will be a factor I reckon. Unless you can do the welding yourself, it's just not worth repairing. Would be good to have someone look underneath it (MOT guy would've been ideal) and see how long he thinks it has before welding is required.

[Mick F]

 

On 20/03/2018 at 8:53 PM, sproutdreamer said:

Perhaps the car coming from Glasgow was exposed to much more salt than in the NW? Am I expecting to much at 14?

Having lived in Scotland a few times, and first in the 1970s, then the 1980s and latterly the early 1990s.  Rust was a common thing.  We often said, that we would never ever buy a secondhand car with a Scottish registration number, and we've not changed our opinions all these years later. Sad, but true.  Scottish cars rust much faster than Northern English cars, and the cars in the South of England rust less - if at all.  Having lived in Lancashire, Scotland (both east and west) Hampshire, and now in Cornwall, I speak from experience.

Mick.

[sproutdreamer]

Interesting Mick, what I suspected-after I bought the car unfortunately. When I have it tested as ok I will take it to a car welding shop and ask them to take a look at the advisories with a view to welding up the worst, most likely to cause a fail MOT next year. It is mechanically excellent and I would just like a couple more years from it. Also the crossbeam/axle is passable at the moment so perhaps a little work with a narrow strip sander and some Rust Oleum spray will halt the corroding process, and some other easy to access areas.

[sproutdreamer]

Thinking about remedial welding to the underside. What areas of the underside are weldable and which are not. If I do get some welding done I need to be sure that I do nort get welded things that are not essential and omit things that are really important. The thing is that welders are not MOT testers so may be a bit of miscommunication possible.

Any thoughts?

[Bomber209]

Hi, I've been living in Scotland for last 40+ years. I always take a trip through a car wash that does the underside wash, after road gritters have been on the go.

[stantheman1]

Damage can also occur when driving too fast over surfaces that have been freshly dressed with stone chippings and then it's only a matter of time when gritting in the winter months accelerates corrosion . Also agree with rinsing the underneath regularly especially during and just after the gritting season.