Protege 5 rust

I did a really detailed walkaround of my car and found rust in a lot of places. Not overly excited about that at all. Right now, looks like rust in both rear wheel wells, bottom front corner of front drivers side door, bubbling on the lower part of the front passenger door, and a spot on the roof, right on the front edge. It has less rust than the Impala I traded in on it, but for a car that's only 6 years old, that seems to be a lot of areas to be rusting already.
 
I agree, it's some bulls***, I Love this car, but they coulda done much better with the steel, startin to see them round here with some serious through rust between rear quarter/bumper gap. The ****** new Rabbits are double galvanized or some s***, even those sh*tbox Focuses and Neons seem to get less rust than the Protege's.



ganzhimself said:
I did a really detailed walkaround of my car and found rust in a lot of places. Not overly excited about that at all. Right now, looks like rust in both rear wheel wells, bottom front corner of front drivers side door, bubbling on the lower part of the front passenger door, and a spot on the roof, right on the front edge. It has less rust than the Impala I traded in on it, but for a car that's only 6 years old, that seems to be a lot of areas to be rusting already.
Click to expand...
 
Removed the emblem on the weekend & there are two 1/8" holes with rubber inserts.

Today I sanded away the rust down to metal, painted the metal with KBS Rust Paint, then once it dries l will fill in the emblem holes and metal imperfections with bondo light bodyfiller.
 
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RUST - okay, anybody have updates on how they fixed their rust bucket MP5? Or what shop charged you a reasonable amount to fix it?
 
2002 MP5 said:
RUST - okay, anybody have updates on how they fixed their rust bucket MP5? Or what shop charged you a reasonable amount to fix it?
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I just sanded down the inside lip of my d/s rear wheel arch and the inner bottom part of my driver's door down to bare metal. After masking, I sprayed several coats of Rust-O-Leum grey primer and left it at that until I can get a can of Sunlight Silver mixed. It's only been about five weeks but it's looking good so far...

For the record, the whole time I was doing this, I was cursing Mazda for me having to do this to a six year old car that's been garaged all its life. Pitiful.
 
2002 MP5 said:
RUST - okay, anybody have updates on how they fixed their rust bucket MP5? Or what shop charged you a reasonable amount to fix it?
Click to expand...

Give yourself lots of time if this is your first venture into auto body repair. I rushed my job, didn't have good lighting in the garage which showed up in my repair to the rear emblem area, the fender repair looks good though.
 
I haven't had mine as long as many others, My GF drives it more than me now but so far I have taken the emblem off and spent some time grinding that surface rurst, as well as grinding the surface rust off my passenger side wheel well. I put some por15 on the inside, primed and painted those areas with the paintscratch kit. If you get real close you can tell, but it looks pretty good for a n00b job!

My driver side rear fender is another story...the lip is rotting away. I bought a replacement panel, and my friend is going to help me cut it out and weld the new one in. We'll see how that project winds up going..
 
I had too. Loved the car but the rust was so bad it wasn't safe. Whenever I touched the body flakes of rust would fall off the car. I even had to make a floor out of some sheet metal from work because my floor was being held together by sound deadening lol.

If it's anything I've learned from owning that car is no matter what rustproof every year or else!
 

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the_glassman said:
Do you get your car Krowned every year? Thinking that might be the way to go with the next one.
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Yup for where I live it only makes sence to do it every year. Where I live it snows often and we use salt to get rid of the snow so if you don't rustproof you car will rust that much faster.
 
I get rust but its fixed by the dealership every 2 years, I bought the life time rust protection package.
 
I'll need new rear shocks next year... probably a new lower control arm, maybe strut mounts. Definitely a tune up. Engine has 226,000k on it now.. going to be hard to justify spending more than $1000 on repairs next year for inspection considering I can probably only get that much for the entire car now. And with the engine/tranny that high milage, it could die at any time, probably right after I drop 1k on repairs... might be looking at a Mazda5 next year.
 
DOMO said:
I had too. Loved the car but the rust was so bad it wasn't safe. Whenever I touched the body flakes of rust would fall off the car. I even had to make a floor out of some sheet metal from work because my floor was being held together by sound deadening lol.

If it's anything I've learned from owning that car is no matter what rustproof every year or else!
Click to expand...

I have similar rust holes and patches done on mine...
 
Can you still lift your car up and rest it on jackstands? I couldn't, my uni welds were so rusted that wasn't possible anymore. That's part of the reason I got rid of my car too along with the fact that my engine was falling apart on me. But I have moved on to a cleaner shell now so I'm thankful for that.

P.s. If you are patching holes bigger than 1 or 2 inches in size and it's not in rear quarters, I'd wouldn't feel too safe. The people who have seen my car and helped part it out could back me up on my claims of how bad the rust was.
 
While swapping her snow tires on the other night the wife mentioned that the jack kept blowing through the rocker panels. :/. She's going to pick up a clean 9-2X that I'm going to try and Fluidfilm while we figure out if it's worth fixing the floors, rockers, rear quarter panels and possibly the front strut towers. :(. She loves her Mazda, but her Proteg doesn't like the high sodium intake. The Saaburu should keep her happy for a couple years until CX-5's bottom out on depreciation.

Has as it ever been confirmed why certain Mazdas were so susceptible to tin worm? Other than the cheap, thin paint? Did the BJ's get galvanized at the factory?
 
DOMO said:
Can you still lift your car up and rest it on jackstands? I couldn't, my uni welds were so rusted that wasn't possible anymore. That's part of the reason I got rid of my car too along with the fact that my engine was falling apart on me. But I have moved on to a cleaner shell now so I'm thankful for that.

P.s. If you are patching holes bigger than 1 or 2 inches in size and it's not in rear quarters, I'd wouldn't feel too safe. The people who have seen my car and helped part it out could back me up on my claims of how bad the rust was.
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Some parts of my car are pretty crunchy... jack stands held it up ok, this time. I had it resting on the front crossmember and I dented them a bit and peeled some of the corroded steel off with my finger... :/ my old neon held up ALOT better... I dont think mazda does any anti-corosion treatment or uses any galvanized metal even on their current models.
 
I spent $500 to cut out my rear wheel arch panels and get them replaced and repainted as well as getting the hole in the hatch fixed.I live in Toronto and every week I get my car up on a hoist and I wash the underbody and wheel arches. and I also wash the car body. SO far its keeping rust away, and I also bought a can of POR-15 to paint over some rusty spots such as in the engine bay.
 
If I see myself keeping the car for another few years im gonna probably invest in some frame/ underbody repairs. for the most part I would say my underbody is in about 70-80% health. And I just put some POR-!5 rust paint on the strut towers to stop them from rusting more.
 
2002 MP5 said:
RUST - okay, anybody have updates on how they fixed their rust bucket MP5? Or what shop charged you a reasonable amount to fix it?
Click to expand...

I spent $500 to cut out my rear wheel arch panels and get them replaced and repainted as well as getting the hole in the hatch fixed.I live in Toronto and every week I get my car up on a hoist and I wash the underbody and wheel arches. and I also wash the car body. SO far its keeping rust away, and I also bought a can of POR-15 to paint over some rusty spots such as in the engine bay.
 
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