WIth the cold and more horrible weather weather approaching, I detailed my car today. I never have never really done an undercarriage cleaning however. I live in NY and we do use salt in the winter. Im starting to get paranoid about the undercarriage. Anyone in the North East ever have rust issues with their LS? How often do you clean your undercarriage? Am I being paranoid?

I did see that someone here and others on other sites are having corrosion issues on the bodies of their LS!

https://www.clublexus.com/forums/ls4...ving-rust.html



I keep my cars paint protected all year round with sealant. Should I still worry about body corrosion? Im reading that rust comes from the inside out. So what can a man do to protect his car? My body has no rust whatsoever, but I never really got under my car to look at the rest of it. It never dawned on my to do so being CPO, I figured it had to be fine. I can't even fit under the car to see, and I only go to the dealer every 6 months for an oil change. ( I figure I might be able to poke around when it's on the lift.)

Am I worrying to much? In this really a non issue? I love my LS so much and want to keep her rust free!

 

The salt spray from winter roads gets under the car and onto the steel parts and they will rust. I don't think there is anything to do to prevent that other than moving to a location that does not use salt in winter. Or not driving the car on cold winter days when the salted roads are wet.

Cars are much better rust protected today than in the 60s when I started driving. Back then the rust on cars was incredible - if you were lucky enough to still have a running car that was 5-7 year old it almost always had serious rust by then. My friend's 7-8 year old Dodge sedan's frame broke in half as he was driving across some railroad tracks because the frame/chassis had rusted completely through.

 

A little off topic, but if anyone here is worried about rust never EVER buy a car that spent its life in the Chicagoland area, EVEN at a Lexus dealer. This applies somewhat to the Northeast too, but it is no where near as bad as the rust belt. Spent some time looking at cars up there with a friend and EVERYTHING in that damn town that had been there at least 3 or 4 years was CAKED with rust underneath. A lot of cars had rust starting on the bodies too. One 2003 QX4 was so bad the running boards almost gave way when I put my foot on them. Even the supposedly pristine LS400 I looked at AT a Lexus dealer had rust areas along the body welds underneath the doors. Rust in these areas will eventually spread up to the door jambs and beyond. They got mad when I backed out of the deal and said they didn't agree with my assessment. Well, when you're used to seeing cars like that day in and day out I guess your standards for rust are a little different!

This was at the Rohrman Lexus dealership in Chi-town. Even just a couple of hundred miles south in Saint Louis the rust situation is 100x better. There really is very little you can do about rust on a daily/winter driven car in Chicago.

 

Makes sense. Chicago uses a lot of salt on the roads. I think the local car dealers give it to the city for free ; )

You can spray steel down with a cold salt water solution let it sit outside and produce quite a bit of rust in 24 hours.