Originally Posted by
MetroMPG
What's the rust situation in PH with the salt air?
Keeping a car 15-20 years here would be a challenge due to road salt use in the winter. A lot of cars that age die from body/frame rust before they're mechanically worn out.
Mostly not a problem with modern cars (built within the past 20 years, or so). When I was a kid, I often saw cars running in the streets driving around with missing body panels. Older Japanese models were very bad with rust, and a lot of them rusted away before becoming mechanically worn out. Back then this meant you often saw older German or American models with a Japanese engine in it.
The rustproofing has been improved significantly since the 90's or so. Our Daihatsu has small spots of surface rust in places but it's not much of a problem. You still see 90's Japanese cars with beaten-up body panels but little rust on them. The salt air isn't so much of an issue, but occasionally there would be floods near the coast with salt water coming into the streets. You have to avoid those.
Skilled labor is fairly cheap, too. If rust becomes a problem just hire a guy to cut away, weld in a new piece, and repaint. But for the most part this is an issue for older cars.
__________________________________________
View my fuel log 2012 Mirage GLS 1.2 manual: 33.3 mpg (US) ... 14.1 km/L ... 7.1 L/100 km ... 40.0 mpg (Imp)