the ol' protege rust..

bcarpenter905

Member
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2001 mazda protege ES 2.0
Hey all, first post here. Im sure most of you have experienced the mazda rust on the wheel arches. My mazda is a 2001 with some considerable high KMs at this point. Im lucky to get through another winter with it i think. The issue at hand is the terrible rust. I dont even want to waste my time putting my system back in the spring time (car in icefishing mode right now) because the rust is just so embarassing. I cannot justify dropping the $500+ to fix it since she really doesnt have much life left in her. I have searched the internet high and low for some sort of wheel arch cover, dont even care if it looks lame aslong as it hides my rust for awhile. Can somebody please point me in the right direction as i cannot find anything that will fit my car. Im looking for something with easy quick installation, hopefully. thankyou.
 
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what you could do is an easy body job all you need is some automotive aluminum, rivets, a drill, sand paper and some body fill if you shape the aluminum around the wheel well rivet the aluminum to the body of the car lightly sand the aluminum to scuff it and put on your body fill sand till smooth and paint it and it should cost you very little probably around $50
 
This will be my project this spring/summer - try this:

http://www.rustrepair.com/MAZDA-PROTEGE-99-PATCH-PANELS.HTM

The wheel arch and rocker panel patches are pretty inexpensive and basically all you do is clean up the area, cut off what you won't need (probably near the gas tank door), use some adhesive caulking stuff to form it to the body and then rivet that puppy in. I'm going to be doing this for both rocker panels and the driver's side wheel arch.
 
i forgot to update on this. i ended up biting the bullet, and replacing the rear quarts last summer. car is still running alright, bit of an engine tick when im not using premium but other than that its pretty good. the only visible rust i have now is on the trunk, right where the spoiler hits the trunk. but im pretty sure its my fault, as i got rid of a serious rattle from my subs, and i think what i used caused moisture to trap, therefor rusted out. other than that, she a pretty nice.
 
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