How to Repair Rust on a Car
Taking a walk down a street and casually glancing over the cars will prove something to you: cars rusting is much more than you might think. It is one of the major problems car dealers have to contend with – you don’t know when rust will appear and where it might appear. Why do you need to create if your car started rusting? How can you prevent your car from rusting? Can you repair rust and how effective is repairing it? These are questions this article will try to address.
Why are Cars Rusting Bad?
Aside from the obvious damage to the aesthetics of your car, rust causes a lot of damage:
- Rust is similar to garden weed – if you don’t take care of it quickly, it’ll only spread and cause more problems. Oxidation happens much faster when the process starts, and if you don’t treat it, the rust might cause irreparable damage.
- Rusting might make your car less insulated and expose the insides of your car to the outside weather. The humidity and air slowly erode the insides of your car and bring down its value.
Is There Ways of Preventing It?
Preventing is always better than treating a problem, and that applies to rust, too. There are easy ways you can protect your car and prevent any damage to it:
- Covering your car and protecting it from extreme weather should be the first thing you do. Heavy rain and snow slowly damage your car’s outer body, and slowly, they’ll make way for rust. Having a high-quality car cover should prevent or slow down rusting greatly.
- Waxing your car isn’t only aesthetically appealing, it also protects the car’s paint and prevents it from fading and damage. Waxing your car at least twice a year should make your car constantly look new and have an excellent coat of paint.
- Prevent water and snow from resting on your car’s body for too long. We all know that water is the main driving factor of rusting, and letting water rest on the body of your car will slowly make it more susceptible to rust.
- As a last-ditch effort, you can repaint your car. The coat of paint directly stands between the raw materials and the outside world, and it is what protects your car from rusting. As a car gets older, the painting slowly fades and erodes away, and this makes a car’s body have a higher chance of rusting.
Any Repair Methods that Work?
Even if you use all of the prevention methods, there is still a chance your car will rust, and you have a few ways of combating it:
- Check your car’s body constantly. The sooner you notice a rusted spot, the easier it is to take care of. The place where the car components meet is the likeliest to rust, so pay attention to those spots in particular.
- Scarpe the rust off carefully using fine grit sandpaper. Be careful not to damage the surrounding paint. Scraping rust off is a temporary solution to prevent its growth.
- Use a rust arrestor and apply it to the entirety of the rust spot. As its name suggests, rust arrestors are particularly good at arresting the speed rust spreads at. You can buy more time by using one.
- Use a primer to cover the rust. This will help the touch-paint to take hold and be more effective.
- Make sure you determine the precise colour of your car and buy touch-up painting matching your car’s colour. This is the last step, and after applying the touch-up paint, the rust should be completely invisible. If you’ve followed all the steps, the rust shouldn’t grow, either.
