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Thread: This is where your Mirage is going to rust out. (Body/chassis corrosion)

  1. #1

    This is where your Mirage is going to rust out. (Body/chassis corrosion)

    Thanks to the accelerated corrosion conditions in rust-belt Ontario, I can bring you this early warning of where your Mirage is going to start rusting out.

    These cars have really thin sheet metal and even thinner paint. Once rust gets in, it will spread fast. Take rust prevention seriously!

    1) Obviously, un-touched-up stone chips ...

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    2) Bottoms of doors, where the seam is ...

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    (Above: left front door)

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    (Above: left rear door)


    (Above: left rear door)
    3) Radiator support /crossmember (lower) ...

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    (You can't see this unless you remove the bumper cover.)

    4) Bumper bar ...

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    (You can't see this unless you remove the bumper cover.)

    5) Floor, under the carpet...

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    This is the left rear floor - the bolt on the left of the pic is where the seatbelt is anchored at the bottom of the B-pillar. The rust doesn't appear too bad, but look closely and you can see the paint is starting to blister all over the place. I didn't look under the driver's carpet -- it's bound to be much worse there.

    6) Rear axle detail...

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    Brackets with horlizontal surfaces are a bad design idea.

    7) Brake drums ...

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    OK, brake drum rust happens to all kinds of cars, but it maybe happened faster to the Mirage.


    8) Lug nuts ...

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    I've had lots of cars with chrome-plated lug nuts... none have done this before. It's very low-quality plating - other owners have identified this problem.

    9) Radiator support /crossmember (upper) ...

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    Not as bad as the lower support.

    More to come...



    Anybody have other trouble spots to add to this?


        __________________________________________

        click to view fuel log View my fuel log 2014 Mirage ES 1.2 manual: 63.2 mpg (US) ... 26.9 km/L ... 3.7 L/100 km ... 75.9 mpg (Imp)


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  3. #2
    (Added April 20th...)

    In the rust department, here's the most worrisome part of the car, the

    10) Front suspension subframe ...

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    The biggest problem isn't the rust that you can see in the pic, it's the rust you CAN'T see. The drainage holes allow dirt, grit and salt to get INSIDE the structure. Grit holds moisture. Add moisture and you've got a recipe for a big problem.

    As mentioned elsewhere in this thread, Chrysler had a similar problem with the Dodge Caliber front subframes rusting leading to structural failure (alignment going wonky; wheels falling off). It was so bad that the company offered a goodwill warranty to replace the subframe. My brother the subframe in his Caliber replaced when it started collapsing.

    Unless your Mirage lives in a desert, everyone should be oiling/rustproofing this part of the car.

    A few more misc rust issues:

    11) Gas tank strap

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    And there's only one strap.

    12) Miscellaneous underbody brackets

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    The problem is where these are spot welded to the unibody.

    13) Boxed frame rails at rear



    This is where you'd mount a trailer hitch. The rear bumper bar attaches to the ends of these sections. I discovered a surprising amount of road grit inside these sections - it must be getting in via road spray through the various bolt/access holes. See post #31.


    14) Rear wheel arches



    Note: this rust is more serious than it looks because it's coming from inside a cavity, not from dirt/water/salt sitting on top of the wheel arch flange. That means there's more rust you can't see; it's more extensive than it looks. See post #38.

    UPDATE on this issue:
    Thread: CSI: rear wheel arch rust. Seal these fasteners!


    15) Rear licence plate bracket



    Everyone who doesn't live outside of a desert is going to have a problem with this part. If you live where winter salt is used, it'll just happen faster.

    Incomprehensibly, Mitsu decided that an UNPAINTED bracket made of low-quality metal would be just fine for a bracket subjected to road spray that swirls up behind the rear bumper cover. Several owners have had this bracket rust to pieces already.

    16) Spot welds

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    I think this is a fault in the manufacturing process.

    There must have been some residue left over welding that wasn't cleaned off before painting: so the paint doesn't adhere well and is porous over the welds, allowing moisture in and rust to form beneath the paint & the weld. I scraped and painted at least a dozen spots. Haven't confirmed whether it's only the rear of the car or if other areas are succeptible (eg. the pinch welds on the rocker panel lower edge!)

        __________________________________________

        click to view fuel log View my fuel log 2014 Mirage ES 1.2 manual: 63.2 mpg (US) ... 26.9 km/L ... 3.7 L/100 km ... 75.9 mpg (Imp)


  4. #3
    So far the only rust I've seen was above the windshield like yours and the front 12" of the hood. And a little surface rust on the bumper rebar like yours too. I haven't seen rusty floors yet but it'll happen on our work cars eventually. Damn you guys get rust bad out there!

        __________________________________________

        click to view fuel log View my fuel log 2014 Mirage SE wussie cvt edition. 1.2 automatic: 37.7 mpg (US) ... 16.0 km/L ... 6.2 L/100 km ... 45.3 mpg (Imp)


  5. #4
    ^ Yeah, interestingly I have no rust on the hood, despite many un-retouched stone chips.

    ---

    Spring cleaning, and I'm finding more rusty bits. I added 3 more pics to the first post.

        __________________________________________

        click to view fuel log View my fuel log 2014 Mirage ES 1.2 manual: 63.2 mpg (US) ... 26.9 km/L ... 3.7 L/100 km ... 75.9 mpg (Imp)


  6. #5
    Senior Member Top_Fuel's Avatar
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    Is there any rust under the hood? I have seen some cars where the rust in the strut towers was so bad, you wondered if the top of the strut was going to blow through the hood the next time you drove over a speed bump or railroad crossing.

        __________________________________________

        click to view fuel log View my fuel log 2015 Mirage ES 1.2 manual: 52.2 mpg (US) ... 22.2 km/L ... 4.5 L/100 km ... 62.6 mpg (Imp)


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  8. #6
    Good question - I haven't spent much time under the hood lately, but will poke around and will definitely check out the strut towers.

    I can tell you the paint on the spot welds on the upper radiator crossmember have blistered and are starting to rust.

        __________________________________________

        click to view fuel log View my fuel log 2014 Mirage ES 1.2 manual: 63.2 mpg (US) ... 26.9 km/L ... 3.7 L/100 km ... 75.9 mpg (Imp)


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  10. #7
    Senior Member Dirk Diggler's Avatar
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    We rarely use salt on the roads down here in the dirty south.

  11. #8
    Senior Member spork's Avatar
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    I don't like this thread! LOL. Thanks for making it though, it's good to try to slow down the inevitable. This is my first year using my Mirage as my winter car, with many more to come. I bought my car in spring 2016 and don't have any rust chips on the hood/roof yet, but more exposed areas have some rust. I tried doing a quick spray with rust preventive before driving this winter, but I did so using a spray can with the car on the ground and did not remove any panels, so it wasn't the most comprehensive.

    The welds here don't look too good.
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    This is kind of an odd spot for rust, and it's been there since I bought the car. One of the hatch lifts is worse than the other.
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    I've seen a few YouTube videos with rust preventative testing, and decided to do a little experiment myself this year. It looks like doing something is definitely better than doing nothing. These test pieces were only on my car from the beginning of February until today.

    before:
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    after:
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        __________________________________________

        click to view fuel log View my fuel log 2015 Mirage DE 1.2 manual: 48.3 mpg (US) ... 20.5 km/L ... 4.9 L/100 km ... 57.9 mpg (Imp)


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  13. #9
    Thanks for posting those - I hadn't noticed the hatch strut mounting points.

    Quote Originally Posted by spork View Post
    The welds here don't look too good.
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    I'm convinced that front subframe is going to be this car's Achilles' heel when it comes to rust. It's got lots of openings to permit moisture and grit to accumulate INSIDE the structure. Untreated, they are going to rust like crazy from the inside out. Despite where the surface rust has started on those welds, it's the thinner metal around them that's going to go.

    The Dodge Caliber had a bad problem with a similar front subframe rusting out . Wheels would go out of alignment & fall off. Chrysler ultimately extended a goodwill warranty to replace the part on badly rusted cars -- my brother had his replaced.

    I'll post a pic of mine soon - it's MUCH worse off than yours!

        __________________________________________

        click to view fuel log View my fuel log 2014 Mirage ES 1.2 manual: 63.2 mpg (US) ... 26.9 km/L ... 3.7 L/100 km ... 75.9 mpg (Imp)


  14. #10
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    Mine clearly isn't anywhere near as bad, although the winter roads get loads of salt.


    There are two threads about axle rust and how to get rid of it:

    https://mirageforum.com/forum/showth...-axle-many-pix

    and

    https://mirageforum.com/forum/showth...usted-many-pix

    The other places on my 2014 car are 100% as new.


    Last edited by foama; 04-11-2020 at 01:46 PM.

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