PoManNox
Active member
I finally had a chance yesterday to oil undercoat my new-ish to me 2021 Equinox LT AWD with just shy of 40K miles on it now. I used Woolwax. It's seen ~3 Buffalo NY rustiest of rust belt winters so far, so I'm used to seeing some "patina" at this age/mileage, but I am kind of surprised at the hidden rust on my 2021. Mostly at the crimp along the entire bottoms of the rocker panels and at the crimps at the pinch welds, but these are areas that will grow like cancer and you wouldn't really know unless you look under the vehicle often. They're kind of out of site because of all the plastic cladding in those areas.
To get into the rocker panels, I opened all 4 doors and pulled up and removed the door sill plastic trim. This exposes some small oval shaped holes that lead right down into the insides of the rocker panels. It's super easy to do. Access to the door and hatch bottoms is a bit more of a challenge as the drain holes are tiny and few, but I still shot woolwax in those areas too.
As far as underneath, I got into most of the unibody rails as best I could as well as the subframes and did a broadcast spray of all the underneath I could with all wheels still on the ground.
It will need to get done again next year and hopefully I'll get all the spots I missed! LOL.
My takeaway here is, if you live in the rust belt and intend to keep your 2018+ as long as possible, get it treated with an oil based rust proofing and repeat every year or two.
To get into the rocker panels, I opened all 4 doors and pulled up and removed the door sill plastic trim. This exposes some small oval shaped holes that lead right down into the insides of the rocker panels. It's super easy to do. Access to the door and hatch bottoms is a bit more of a challenge as the drain holes are tiny and few, but I still shot woolwax in those areas too.
As far as underneath, I got into most of the unibody rails as best I could as well as the subframes and did a broadcast spray of all the underneath I could with all wheels still on the ground.
It will need to get done again next year and hopefully I'll get all the spots I missed! LOL.
My takeaway here is, if you live in the rust belt and intend to keep your 2018+ as long as possible, get it treated with an oil based rust proofing and repeat every year or two.
