smith627
Active Member
2004 Expedition has spent it's life in Mississippi and has no rust.
We put salt in our food and not on our roads.
We put salt in our food and not on our roads.
RUST....WHY?
- Thread starter Don Hall
- Start date
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eburnside
Member
'04 Expedition - We opted for a 3rd party underbody coat when we bought it. Spent 100k miles of it's life in oregon near the coast, 30k or so in southern cal along the coast, and another 30k now in BC, Canada. The rust is just starting to show up and become a problem, I think due to what they treat the roads with in the winter. They say they don't use salt, but whatever it is is super corrosive.
Other car is a recent model infiniti QX60 and it has had crazy rust issues. Bearings on the steering rusted out after just two years, body panels show rust spots all the way around, the worst in the back around the license plate. Of course we had to get white too, so it's super obvious. Glad we got the warranty on that one, barely 100k miles and already on it's third CVT transmission. (at $10k/ea to replace if not under warranty.) The last tranny went less than 20k miles before starting it's death throes. I asked the service manager if that was "normal". His response was he's seen them go anywhere from 20k miles to 100k miles. I asked what the warranty was on a new one if we weren't already under warranty. He said 12 months, 12,000 miles. Wow.
So we're pretty happy with our '04 expo, and looking forward to the next one having aluminum. Tho I am aware the aluminum corrodes too, it doesn't seem nearly as bad.
Other car is a recent model infiniti QX60 and it has had crazy rust issues. Bearings on the steering rusted out after just two years, body panels show rust spots all the way around, the worst in the back around the license plate. Of course we had to get white too, so it's super obvious. Glad we got the warranty on that one, barely 100k miles and already on it's third CVT transmission. (at $10k/ea to replace if not under warranty.) The last tranny went less than 20k miles before starting it's death throes. I asked the service manager if that was "normal". His response was he's seen them go anywhere from 20k miles to 100k miles. I asked what the warranty was on a new one if we weren't already under warranty. He said 12 months, 12,000 miles. Wow.
So we're pretty happy with our '04 expo, and looking forward to the next one having aluminum. Tho I am aware the aluminum corrodes too, it doesn't seem nearly as bad.
I don't consider the aluminum to corrode anything like iron/steel does. You might get a little under the paint that makes the paint bubble but it wont penetrate through or vanish the way sheet metal rockers do on an older Expy.
parkerdoug383
Full Access Members
I am surprised you have rust issues in CA it's usually road salt that causes the bad rust but if you're going to have rust it's certainly going to be on a Ford.I recently purchased an 04 expedition and didn't look underneath it to well .Bottom line is if you own a Ford don't ever look underneath it your not going to like what you find.Then again I live in the Northeast.
ExplorerTom
Full Access Members
In the northeast, can’t you look through your floorboards to see underneath? Regardless of what you drive?
No, the carpet is in the way. At least for a while.
2003XLT w/180K
...... thanks for reminding me, this is from last summer (passenger floorboard area)
..........from under the Expy my finger is hitting carpet inside the vehickel cabin
.............. I should do something about this situation this summer !!
i think that's a finger ....
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Ford bodies are E-coated in production. They are put in a electrically charged resin bath. The coating covers entire surface area, then they are baked. A few hundred dollars worth of plastic shields and stainless steel/composite lines and parts, vehicles would last forever. Composite rocker panels and door lowers for example. The average age of a vehicle is 17yrs. Driving a 20yr old vehicle, used to be niche thing. By that age most have a ton of mileage, out of style and getting tired. Jacking/lifting a unibody car(like a Mustang), can scratch it. Padded jack and lifts should be used. Once the paint is broken, it will rust.
Yes & no. I do Krown treatment once a year but it washes off with rain and dirt and time. Same with Fluid Film and all the other versions. I've found a thick coating of Fluid Film (lanolin oil) works well on a protected area like the gas fill tube. Ziebart and other more durable coatings can trap the water and corrosive chemicals (salts) under the treatment and create a nursery for corrosion. My buddy in the paint & coatings business says there is no such thing as a coating that prevents corrosion permanently. The corrosion happens at the atomic level where iron atoms form bonds with other atoms (like Oxygen) due to the strong forces that exist at that level for chemical bonds to form. Since the visible body of an Expy (the paint outside) doesn't seem to rust, one has to wonder why Ford doesn't paint the underside in a similar manner? Or maybe cover the entire underside with a plastic shield … or something. Planned obsolescence? Cost controls? Some dealers will sell you an electronic guard the applies a voltage to the body but I don't think theres any evidence that works. Personally I think its useful to flush out the rocker panels and coat the inside with oil at least annually then cover those holes to keep water out, but I wont know for sure until 10 years from now. And that's a lot of work, who wants to do that? I also think its good the keep the vehicle clean everywhere but especially in places you cant see, like underneath. Hard to do though. A great solution to corrosion is to make body parts out of aluminum, but then there are other issues. Pick your poison.
At Xerox, we had big printing machines that pounded out millions of prints a week for years. Parts would break and be replaced … rollers .. motors .. switches .. sensors .. etc. What was found was that after a certain number of cycles the machine had to be torn down to the frame and the wiring harness replaced. In the end all those electrical connections became unreliable due to all the cycles vibrations etc. And the electronics, the chips that powered the machine were no longer available … end of life! I think an old Expy is kind of like that. Its just reaches the end of its life and all the rust is just part of that, its matched by all the other parts that are all failing after 20 years and its too expensive to just keep fixing all that. Besides we gotta make room for the self driving cars.
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