Here's a little something to give you sleepless nights and paranoia These are the horrors of where these cars rot and hasn't this one got some of course the pictures below do show the extremes as I've a feeling this Coupe has spent some/all of it's life by/in the sea

First up are some light spots.

N/S Inside the boot under the boot carpet.


N/S under the front arch.


Front O/S under the plastic liner, previously repaired from the evidence, thing is the welding was rubbish, couple of taps with a chisel and this plate just fell off, I think the under seal was holding it on mainly


Ok getting a little worse now.

Under side of the front cross member.


N/S by the front jacking point.


O/S by the front jacking point.


N/S front subframe fixing points.


O/S front subframe fixing points.


O/S front by brake flex.


Another front O/S.


N/S under the plastic arch roughly where the ECU lives, the white in the picture is the underside of the carpet.


Front fixing point for the O/S rear subframe.


Inside the boot O/S.


Another of the above, just a little closer, I pushed my finger straight through here.


This one is under the O/S plastic liner where the arch meets the sill.


Getting really serious now.

O/S rear chassis subframe mounting point.


N/S rear chassis subframe mounting points.


Another N/S rear chassis.


Finally the worst and most dangerous.

Underside shot of the N/S suspension turret.


You can just imagine the strut popping through into the engine bay while cornering at high speed

I did contemplate saving this Coupe but Decided it might be too far gone here is Mike's reaction when I told him it's going



I hope some of these pictures help with what to look out for when making a possible purchase, some will be hard to see as the plastic covers hide the arches but I think you get the general idea

......hold me

Good lord! That suspension turret is truly shocking!

People let their cars get into this state?!

Thing is Jon that turret had been filled with foil and filler to cover over the holes caused by the corrosion

You can't call that a suspension turret ... there's nothing of it left

Drove around with my Uno Turbo's arches looking like that for ages back in the day...can't see what's wrong with 'em

Actually seeing those pictures makes me question a lot of the coupes out on the road.

Having seen some recently with the view to purchase, you can't help but think that what you're looking at isn't as it seems.

I think the decision to take that particular motor off the road is a highly commendable one! .. think of the potential outcome of the damper and wheel crashing through into the engine bay if it was to give way.

Good shout putting the pics up Joe. Quite an eye opener!

Reminds me of when I stripped a Lancia Dedra Turbo to have some fun on the track. When I went to work on the big bolts that held the rear seatbelt locks to the chassis... I just twisted a whole chunk of ex-metal out of there. I could actually see the tyre through a 5cm hole.

indeed, there getting to the age now where if they have not been properly looked after, not even the galvanised body will save them

there is a fair few places to hide rust on a coupe, and if where all honest its probably not something we are all as wary about as we could be

Looks can be deceiving with these cars sometimes, this Inky looked but had a hidden story as the above pictures show.

Oh and this was a 1999 Coupe

Mine wasnt that bad was it joe...???Go on break it to me gently...

God...i got worried then. At the start i thought that might of been my old one that those pics came from

Is very worrying though at just how bad things can be...

Just going to go and get the underseal!

Brilliant heads-up Joe. Vindicating not saving the poor Coupe when it's only 99% FE O2 Incredible that it's a 99 model

thats absolutely shocking on a car that is galvanised.

i had mine raised off the ground last winter and went through it....but never saw anything like that

its almost as if it wasnt protected properly wneh it was made

This is one of the reasons why we do not allow comments on the Coupés For Sale threads.

Think about it, people dive in heaping praise on a car, often based on photographs, saying "This is a cracking looking car" and similar but in fact no-one has any idea what is hiding beneath it........

Now imagine that someone buys that car based on those comments.......

Thats is quite shocking

Curiously, my NA - five years older - has had some rust but very little. But in all the same places... most of it was just surface rust though there were a couple of places where the floor-pan has rusted through and had to be repaired.

Which is why I'm planning a bare-metal strip and rebuild in a year or so.

As I say this Coupe is extreme, and no Reuben yours isn't anything like this one so no worries there mate

It just shows what we are going to be up against in a few years time, they're going to rust, there's no way round as they're made of steel but if it's caught early it'll save it getting as bad as this one.

Prevention is better then cure in my book, if your Coupe is older then 10 years it might be worth getting her up on a ramp and having a good look about at these problem areas, you won't be able to see everything as the plastic arch liners cover some areas but you'll get a good idea of the corrosion and whether further invetigation is needed.

With myself if I can see an issue I get the wire brush and rust treatment out followed by some under seal, I attend to the odd spot here and there on customers cars without them even knowing, it's a free service most of the time and if there's any reason for concern I let the owner know. To date only one other Coupe has had more then average issues and this has now been stripped treated and rebuilt.

Well I've had a poke around mine today to check areas. I'm pleased to say I won't be seeing my suspension collapsing on me


Fair enough, places the responsibility onto the buyer to check whatever they are buying is as described.

Mine's already got a few spots underneath to treat so I bought a car tent last weekend. Hopefully keeping it dry will slow down the process a little.

I don't feel too bad about the state of my car having seen this. Last time I saw rust like that it was on a Vauxhall Victor. (1970's motor for those youngsters).

The Vauxhall Victor, boy what a car that was

The one for me was the 2 door twin OHC model which had a switch on the gear knob for the over drive, my Mother had one of these but she wasn't a great fan as it was too fast for her

my first coupe was ridden with rust.
I got it 8 years ago next week and at the time it was only 4 years old.
The guy that had it before me had a big accident in it and didn't record it but left it standing for 6 months before fixing it and the rot set in.
He had had fixed up nice then part-ex'd it in the garage my father-in-law worked, didn't show up on a hpi of course as it wasn't recorded.
Anyway he told me they had this cool car in so I bought it as a birthday pressie to myself but after about 9 months rust started bubbling through everywhere!!!
At first I thought it was because it was a fiat but then someone told me they knew the history of the car so I got rid.

Has anyone any knowledge of the CAT rust protection system. Is this a load of tosh or is there something in it. The only reason I think might be something is because I've seen similar used in construction industry protecting masts and even steel reinforcement in concrete. But can you really get a current to reach every car panel or are critical bits isolated - ? don't know enough. Any thoughts / reviews welcome to help me sleep at night (thanks Joe - I think). Just freaked out enough by the photos to consider something as off the wall as this as well as the usual waxoyl/Dinitrol route.

http://www.rustguardian.co.uk/index.html

I just had a good chuckle at the CAT system website. This has all the hallmarks of 100% pure snake-oil:

1) Untraceable testamonials.

2) A nice dollop of pseudo science (quote: "This unit modifies the power produced by the battery into a constant "stream" of free electrons that operate the system."),
Erm, "stream of electrons? Isn't that just an electric current? So this is really just short-circuiting the battery though the bodywork?

3) Scientific proof ... the only problem is that googling the "eminent Physicist" Donald Harrison only returns links to this product (and lots of links to a jazz musician of the same name), so maybe he isn't quite so eminent after all.

Out of curiousity, I have sent them an email asking for a price, but if you really want to try this system, send me 10 quid and I'll make you one (and pocket the £9.50 profit).

I'll keep my £10 thanks Dickie. But seems that there's quite a few claiming that this could work. I think the science is sound - but its the application thats that problem. I'm very dubious that this can be applied to anything like a vehicle. A building or a mast that you can rig to the mains is one thing - but the old coupe she don't hang around much.

Other snake oil merchants I've since come across:-
http://www.counteractrust.com/what%20others.htm
http://www.erps.com.au/
http://www.autoxtreme.com.au/catalogue/l...arentCategory=1

If you could persuade your car to collect electrons as you drove about it could have the benefit of electrocuting people who key it!
Just a shame that dam battery is connected to the bodywork.


edit:
Hang on lads I've got an idea...

connect a battery charger to the shell and one terminal to the battery then as the electrons flow through shell to the battery they will replace any that are lost to oxidisation (Rusting) maybe the car will have enough of its own when its running?
But where would the come from? The alternator only pushes them about? looks like we still need to find electrons to steal.

Why would you need to steal the elctrons - they're free, remember ;rolleyes:

There are plenty of folk who will sing the praises of fuel magnets, perpetual motion machines, "Brown's gas" generators and Slick 50, but that doesn't make any of them actually work.

The company's web site has a pseudo scientific explaination to make this product sound a bit like sacrificial anode protection, a proven method of reducing corrosion commonly used on ships and oil-rigs. Sadly, a conductive electrolye is required for this to work, so unless you wish to park your coop in a tank of brine, this is not going to work.

Judicious application of Occam's Razor usually helps when weighing up these claims, i.e: Which is more likely...

A) The car industry with their enormous R&D budgets and decades of research have foolishly decided that preventing rust requires galvanising or application of expensive paint treatments (or whatever other methods they use), when all that is actually required is to pass a little current through the body by leaving the side-lights on.

or

B) The CAT system and others like it are either woefully misguided or a straight forward con.

I can't help but imagine narrow boat anodes bolted to the sides of the doors

Well it's an idea

I recognise that bonnet!

The strut is just scary though.

That Coupe is the worst I've seen.. Must have been an all-year-round user?

I bought mine (84400km '98) in 2002 and was REALLY petty about rustspots. I found a few small ones underneath (worst was the rear jacking points) and fixed these, then rustproofed the whole car whereever I could with thin wax. Sills, doors, lids, inner floor.
Also I never drive on salted roads (november - april here).

Seems to work!

I recognize the front strut tops, I saw small bubbles inside when I swapped to Billies. Obviously fixed right away!

Duh...starting to think it might be B. I was never claiming to be convinced - the question I asked "is it a load of tosh" would suggest I wasn't convinced. But there is no getting away from the fact that there are shed loads of construction examples - reinforcement in concrete frame buildings being protected by impressed current cathodic protection systems. And they don't use tanks full of brine. http://www.cathodicprotectiontech.com/technology. I'm not going to convince anyone on here that I'm as unconvinced as the next so I'm going to go now and fill the paddling pool.

This poor Coupe only had 86k on the clock

How much do you think was down to dodgy repairs Joe?

My GF's 20V VIS is a 99 build-date (registered 2000 though) and there's a part of the chassis just in front of o/s rear wheel that it appears the factory "forgot" to treat/underseal...thankfully no serious rust has set in, the car's only done minimal mileage and none of it by the coast so I've been able to treat it well before it develops into anything more sinister but it does make me wonder how many other Coupé's the factory "forgot" to treat properly?! Maybe a similar circumstance partially explains the car that's the subject of the original post??

I've just gone belt & braces on some rust on mine.
The rear bumper hangers are in a heated rust-eater bath.

Hopefully it will all disappear.

Link
After 4 hours
A few rusty bolts foaming in the solution