I live in the great salted New England and my 2001 ES has lived its whole life outside of Boston. I drive it year round. As a sort of re-commitment to keep driving my ES I decided this spring I'll fix the rust which has seemed to start around the rear wheel well lips to keep it at bay so maybe I can take her to 200k..

I was taking the lip trim off this weekend, and I knew I had a little rust peeking out on the right side rocker.



After removing the rocker and cladding I see it was more than I thought...



The other side had no visible rust peeking through the rocker, but I figured I'll check anyways. It was worse!



I'm going to prep and paint it which should stop it or at least slow it down for the rest of the useful life of the chassis.

If you live in the salt belt yourself, you might want to check your own ES. You do have to release 2 clips for the cladding which will probably break and the upper edge uses foam tape which you would need to clean off and replace. The rocker trim has clips underneath most of which will break as well.

Though not structural damage yet for me, there is a lot of material gone, the rocker trim was full of rust dust! I think this is due to the way this car is structured, all the cladding on the lower body hides the metal and traps water so you might not notice what is happening over time.

 

I pulled the cladding off when I first got my car and found rust just starting on the drivers side. The passenger side wheel well (back side) has a splash shield that traps dirt and water I had to do rust repair there as well.

When you're done with the rust repair (POR-15 system highly recommended) spray the area with Fluid Film. I was not able to remove the cladding either without breaking the clips.

 

You really need to protect this area from INSIDE the trunk.

Remove the trunk side cladding and have a peak. You need to spray lots of anti-rust treatment in there. The rust treatment will flow down and find its way to the area thats's shown in your picture. It will protect it from behind, which is where the rust started.

Phil

 

As nice as the cladding is on these cars, this was such an oversight on Toyota's part.... all those cars of that era, unless in the lower 50, would be subject to salting/bad winter roads.

I had this taken care of within a couple years of having my car as well, and the thing was coated yearly! Sucks to see it that bad on your cars'

I at least always had metal... this was after I got rear-ended, many years later.

 

There's no vent from the inside of the trunk to the dog legs like in OP's car. Trust me, I had the sheetmetal apart at the shop, there is two separate "pieces" of sheetmetal, where it seems they would connect, but they're separated entirely.

I'm glad you mentioned the trunk, I had a leak somewhere in mine, the tire & side "tubs" were rusty in no-time, so I had cleaned & painted those areas in the first little while too.

The only thing from trunk -> exterior is the roof vent tubes. This is through the trunk, against the sides of the rear bumper. A good spot to watch out for as well, I noticed in the later years a patch that started lifting up off the top of the muffler.

Mine never rusted out, as I painted it flat black yearly, but you can see it "bubbling".

 

Power6, I'm surprised you didn't have a trick up your sleeve with this... with all the stuff you did to the car since you first joined CL.

You don't know any weekend warriors that can at least weld in some new sheetmetal?

At this point it may not matter, but the metal that is gone was preventing the sling from the tires from hitting the entirety of the inner wheel well... The Nissan's of the early 00's vintage had that issue since they had no cladding and road debris would destroy the inner wheel wells & eventually rot the floor. :s

 

My car was purchased in Austin TX and stayed there all it's life until it came to Houston. No worries about salt rust!


01LEXPL - "all those cars of that era, unless in the lower 50" - now you're sounding like someone that won President taking about all 57 states he had been to! There are only 48 lower states. Alaska and Hawaii are not considered lower states! Just joshing ya!

 

Yeah I know you'd think I would have looked in there and taken care of this 3 years ago ;-). Honestly the body on this car was just never that nice though the pictures might look good it def had a couple obvious accidents and there is some bondo in the left rear quarter and door.

This is what happens to me, I buy the car thinking it is just a sort of beater and then I end up liking it more and want to keep it nice. If I was way into an ES I'd find a cream puff and swap all my parts into that. But I'm not *that* into it. I've just been driving it for the past 18 months haven't spent a dime on it. Now I am at a turning point. I can fix the rust and still need to address the rattling suspension in the rear and a couple other things. Time is a problem for me though more than money, I started a business last year which should and does take all my time, so I ponder the new car route a lot.

 

When Texans say 'God Bless Texas', the full saying is 'God Bless (the unsalted roads and agreeable weather to prevent rust in) Texas'.