VE commodore- Typical spots for rust/ deterioration

[BR33ZE]

Hey folks,

Well I’m a bit dirty. I purchased a VE white commodore wagon from a bloke in Sydney who assured me that the car has never been in any accidents or had any touch up paint applied… my first mistake was trusting him. Anyways the car is signed done and dusted- it’s mine… so…..

Since receiving the car and washing it I have an area of suspicion on the left door side at the sill area (just below the window). Is this a typical area of rust for the VE commodore…. I’m trying to work out if what I’m looking at is dodgy paint over rust that will ultimately come through again or simply overspray/ paint covering up something else. Interested in your thoughts…. The other area is along the chrome strip on the boot area….

Worst case I’ll just get the door resprayed/ a blend respray but if it’s not rust underneath I’ll simply leave it as it won’t change/ get worse.

 

[Skylarking]

Never trust what a seller tells you as puffery isn’t actionable under law and you may be left holding a lemon. FYI, puffery is sellers exaggerated bullshite statements, stuff like “this is the best car ever” and “only driven to church on Sundays” (while they stuff like it was driven to Bathurst church hitting the limiter running down Conroe straight once a week)….

In your case, if you asked a specific question like “has this been in any accident” and “has it had any paint touch ups”, the seller telling lies is actionable under law especially if you relied on such representations. But you can’t rely on representations of you make your own checks as one guy who bought a fake rare car and had it inspected found out…

Whether going down the costly legal path is worth while can only be answered by you but I’d guess in this specific case it’s just not worth the trouble for a VE commodore.

As to the problem itself, it’s hard to tell what is going on with the paint in that area but you could take the lower window moulding off and have a better look at the upper part of the door panel. If you’re lucky it’s just some peeling clear coat.

Regardless, modern cars like the VE/VF commodore use galvanised panels in places (iirc) and the completed bodies are fully immersed in special undercoating that further protect the vehicle. The final colour coat and clear coat are for aesthetic purposes even though they complement the protection provided by the other earlier coatings. As such rust isn’t the same problematic issue on VE’s as it was with older commodores, VH’s for example…

Having said that, there is one place where some have commented that rust is a big problem on early VE’s. The brake pedal box panel on these early VE’s isn’t galvanised or well protected and it can rust. Fu‘s thread here describes it briefly.. IIRC, the later vehicles had the metal panel replaced by a plastic panel which doesn’t rust…

Hopefully the brake pedal plate isn’t rusted as it’s a big job to fix.

Good luck with it.

 

[BR33ZE]

Never trust what a seller tells you as puffery isn’t actionable under law and you may be left holding a lemon. FYI, puffery is sellers exaggerated bullshite statements, stuff like “this is the best car ever” and “only driven to church on Sundays” (while they stuff like it was driven to Bathurst church hitting the limiter running down Conroe straight once a week)….

In your case, if you asked a specific question like “has this been in any accident” and “has it had any paint touch ups”, the seller telling lies is actionable under law especially if you relied on such representations. But you can’t rely on representations of you make your own checks as one guy who bought a fake rare car and had it inspected found out…

Whether going down the costly legal path is worth while can only be answered by you but I’d guess in this specific case it’s just not worth the trouble for a VE commodore.

As to the problem itself, it’s hard to tell what is going on with the paint in that area but you could take the lower window moulding off and have a better look at the upper part of the door panel. If you’re lucky it’s just some peeling clear coat.

Regardless, modern cars like the VE/VF commodore use galvanised panels in places (iirc) and the completed bodies are fully immersed in special undercoating that further protect the vehicle. The final colour coat and clear coat are for aesthetic purposes even though they complement the protection provided by the other earlier coatings. As such rust isn’t the same problematic issue on VE’s as it was with older commodores, VH’s for example…

Having said that, there is one place where some have commented that rust is a big problem on early VE’s. The brake pedal box panel on these early VE’s isn’t galvanised or well protected and it can rust. Fu‘s thread here describes it briefly.. IIRC, the later vehicles had the metal panel replaced by a plastic panel which doesn’t rust…

Hopefully the brake pedal plate isn’t rusted as it’s a big job to fix.

Good luck with it.

Thanks heaps mate, I really appreciate the lengthy response… legend…

Regarding the car overall it’s in good condition and it was purchased privately. I called the previous owner and he assures me it’s never had a prang but like you said you can never trust.

Funny you say about the galvanising because there are a few stone chips (one on boot and one on roof) that have a brownish tinge but would it be fair to say that ordinarily the rust in chips don’t get worse due to gal coatings…. Great car overall and goes very well….

 

[Skylarking]

Funny you say about the galvanising because there are a few stone chips (one on boot and one on roof) that have a brownish tinge but would it be fair to say that ordinarily the rust in chips don’t get worse due to gal coatings…. Great car overall and goes very well….

Galvanised coating should mean that rust shouldn't form within stone chips as the zinc should sacrificially protect the underlying steel... Really, I haven't looked into that side of chemistry since high school and 1st year uni so can't say for sure why you're see rust forming within the stone chips

But may be one has to factor that possibly the paint coatings over the zinc coupled with the lack of fluid (electrolyte) may not allow electron migration to do it's protection thing fully between the zinc and steel? Long term, I'd guess such protection would occur at the cost of zinc loss and thus loss of paint adhesion? It's all beyond my pay grade

Lets also not forget that some panels are aluminium which don't corrode in the same way and may be not all steel panels are fully galvanised. You shouldn't see rust within stone chips found on the aluminium boot but maybe you could see some on the steel roof though I'd have expected the zinc to stop such formation in the later case...

Someone who's worked in the body production lines would know the construction ins and outs but from what I've read, only the bonnet and boot were aluminium. I do know that some internal brackets under the dash aren't galvanised nor painted (poor effort on Holden's part) and as such surface rust is commonly seen on those bits

 

[losh1971]

My guess would be that the stone takes not only the paint but the galv layer underneath at the same time, depending on the strike as the paint is bonded with the under coating. I've had numerous chips fixed but I haven't taken any notice of whether they started to rust or not.

 

[Skylarking]

My guess would be that the stone takes not only the paint but the galv layer underneath at the same time, depending on the strike as the paint is bonded with the under coating. I've had numerous chips fixed but I haven't taken any notice of whether they started to rust or not.

Zinc provides sacrificial protection to steel/iron.

Zinc is consumed in the chemical reaction and saves the iron from rusting in the process. In doing so, it doesn't even need to coat all the iron to do it's thing as it just needs a fluid of sorts that allows electrons to flow between the two materials.

That's why steel boats only need big lumps of zinc bolted to the steel hull as the sea water is great at being the electrolyte that allows the process to occur effectively. In those cases, the zinc doesn't encapsulate the iron and can still protects iron some distance form the sacrificial zinc blob.

What I'm not fully across is whether rain water or air humidity allows zinc coatings over steel to work as effectively as these lumps attached to steel boat hulls. I assume it's of benefit else we'd not cover so much steel with zinc (either electrically applied, vapour sprayed or hot dip galvanised).

It must work even when gouged during construction cause it's everywhere.

My guess would be that the paint slows the sacrifical reaction between zinc and steel but one shouldn't see rust forming in stone chips... May be it;s just road dirt (given it's also seen in the alloy boot skin)

 

[losh1971]

I know that cold gal doesn't stop steel from rusting and I thought it was supposed to? I've used CG and it still formed surface rust over time. Painted CG with a top coat seems to work well though, with CG acting as an etch on raw steel.

 

[lmoengnr]

The brown spots might be embedded dirt or dust in the bottom of the paint chips.

 

[losh1971]

I still have a few chips I will take a closer look over time and see if they rust.

 

[Skylarking]

I still have a few chips I will take a closer look over time and see if they rust.

As fun as watching paint dry