For you fellow GE owners, do you have any rust on your cars yet? The Fit has some on the engine subframe at the pinch seams, and passenger lower control arm. The biggest area is the size of two quarters. This is after a single New York winter. I'm frankly irritated at Honda for putting these out without adequate corrosion protection.

For this upcoming winter, I've already sprayed the underside with 4 cans of Fluid Film. That stuff isn't cheap at $10 a can. It's worth it if the rust stays at bay. We'll see if it's any better than the absurdly low bar set by the factory corrosion protection.

 

Upon close inspection of the FIT at the dealer when I got mine... I wouldn't be surprised.

Before they start spraying the first salt this winter... mine would be in a climate controlled Public Storage garage... stat!

 

I haven't looked carefully, but when I was installing mesh to protect the AC condenser the other week I did notice that some welds were rusting. Mine is 18 months old with one NY winter on it, and 36,000 miles on the odometer. It is a bit worrisome, as I am hoping to keep this car as long as my previous one, which was a '91 Accord.

 

There's a nice car wash at Northern Blvd going towards Flushing NY. They do manual under carriage hot pressure wash

 

I found a small amount, on the steel screws that hold on the rear bumper valances or whatever they're called, the two little plastic pieces that complete the rear bumper. Was driven for half a winter in Chicago (10k mi), and its been in California ever since (16k mi, 26k miles total). I assume road salt saturated snow slush got stuck up there.

 

Nothing of any significance on mine after one winter, but I'm not optimistic. The "Empire State" destroys cars by using literally thousands of tons of salt on the roads up here every winter. I don't care what you do, or what car you drive, the only defense is to take your car off the road from November to April. New York has destroyed every car I've owned. It's another tax you pay for the "privilege" of living in New York.

Living here is why I'm not really a "car" person. It's hard to form any attachment to a car, when you know it's going to be a rusted out piece of junk in half a dozen years or so.

 

I love the NW.. no salt here.. no rust except out at the coast, and even then it's mild if you wash your car.

We still have early 80's Honda's on the road here.. beat to hell but no rust! The older ones.. rust.. but any 70's jap import will. Heck, Toyota didn't figure out how to prevent them rusting until the late 80's.

 

Have any of you thought of undercoating? I used to have an 08 liberty and had Ziebart do it and it turned out awesome.

 

i just fairly closely inspected my fit.
it's been through 2 winters in new jersey.
there has been a considerable amount of snow during that time.
they use a lot of that horrid brine spray as well as salt here.

i see some rust along the edge of the frame under the engine bay.
it could probably rust there for 10 years without adding up to much.

i dont really see any other signs of rust.

 

Well, depending on how close you are to the coast, it might not be much better.

When I was living in San Diego, I was just a few blocks from the coast, and some days, you can taste the salt in the air. So, I imagine that all year round is enough to warrant some attention too.

 

Any car, no matter how good its rust protection from the factory will inevitably rust in any snow belt states as salt is just relentless.

Best way to prevent such is to have an underbody rust prevention routine such as Kroil (unfortunately only available in Canada). They spray Lanolin based oil under the car and other key places.

As one member here used, Fluid Film is aslo Lanolin based but does not come cheap.