• Zipitydew@sh.itjust.works
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    5 months ago

    Older cars for sure did rust faster because the manufacturers didn’t adopt galvanizing until the late 80’s. Then in the 90’s various other spray coatings and sealers became common. Aluminum is also now prevalent to save weight.

    Old cars in the south and southwest didn’t have road salt accelerating the oxidation. But if they were brought up north they caught up quickly. Cars in the north prior to galvanizing would be rotted out in 100k miles easily.

    • AlDente@sh.itjust.works
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      5 months ago

      Neat, i’m glad we agree. Early 90’s is still very early in perspective to this audience. I’m driving a '92 and that’s 32 years old now. The cars from that decade last much longer than the 100k quoted above. Also, this is beyond 2.5X the average quoted in the OP article. Clearly, these are “old” cars. In sum, the 100k-till-rust-apart claim isn’t anchored in reality.

      • Zipitydew@sh.itjust.works
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        5 months ago

        Except that only started on luxury brands. And the Japanese brands have struggled with it the most.

        Hondas were still well known for rusting out too quickly into the early 2000s. They even had recalls on 2007-2011 CR-V.

        Toyota in 2016 settled a class action suit for multiple models from 2004-2008. And that was on top of a different recall for rusting that spanned 1995-2003 models.

        Nissans still tend to have the transmission blow up before the car can rust out. But did have their own rust issues.

        Basically, Japan doesn’t use road salt. And their engineers had much less experience dealing with it. But the issue has persisted way longer than it should have taken them to solve for.