Underbody rust, 2021 Equinox

[PoManNox]

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.

 

[Hey Vern!]

Thanks for the tip! I've been thinking about having all my cars treated with krown.

 

[PoManNox]

Thanks for the tip! I've been thinking about having all my cars treated with krown.

Krown is decent, but very much needs to be done every year w/out fail @ the current price of about $175 all in per application. It's very thin like vegetable oil. IMO, it depends a lot on the quality of the application. 4-5yrs ago I had my Ram 1500 treated at a Buffalo area shop that does Krown. They did OK, but I wasn't thrilled with the application. This is what prompted me to do my own fluid film and/or woolwax applications.

FWIW, I also have a 2021 Traverse that I bought 6-7 months ago. It's also lived it's whole life in the Buffalo NY area, yet the corrosion resistance seems a lot better underneath the Traverse vs the Equinox. I need to spray my Traverse next...

 

[Hey Vern!]

I'll check out the woolwax. I have the leaky sunroof, so I have had plenty of water inside my nox, too. It was treated with something in the past. It has little holes with plastic plugs.

 

[Ryty763]

Yeah, I live up in Minnesota and it just started snowing recently pretty bad! I’ve actually been thinking about getting either going to a professional to get that done or just try doing it myself for the first time this year since I just bought my 2016 Chevy equinox LT a few months ago! Gosh, I hate winter so much! Ha ha lol ;-)

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.

Yeah, I live up in Minnesota and it just started snowing recently pretty bad! I’ve actually been thinking about getting either going to a professional to get that done or just try doing it myself for the first time this year since I just bought my 2016 Chevy equinox LT a few months ago! Gosh, I hate winter so much! Ha ha lol ;-)
Do you have any recommendations on what I should do?!

 

[PoManNox]

Yeah, I live up in Minnesota and it just started snowing recently pretty bad! I’ve actually been thinking about getting either going to a professional to get that done or just try doing it myself for the first time this year since I just bought my 2016 Chevy equinox LT a few months ago! Gosh, I hate winter so much! Ha ha lol ;-)
Do you have any recommendations on what I should do?!

I feel your pain! It snowed for about 10 days straight in the Buffalo area, starting on Thanksgiving. Luckily, total accumulation was only around 3-4ft for some areas. In the midst of it, a flange downstream of the center muffler sprung a huge exhaust leak on our 2021 Chevy Traverse w/ only 47K miles on it. I've got too much stuff going on in my garage at the moment and are working a ton of hours, so it's currently at a shop just down the road from my house getting looked at..

In terms of your Equinox and getting it treated with an oil based rust proofing, ANY of them is better than nothing. Applying these products in the winter isn't ideal, as much of it will get washed off before it has it's best change to set up. Ideally, you apply these products in the summer/early fall. It allows the product to creep and flow into areas you can't get to and it allows it to dry slightly and "stick" to surfaces much better.

If you want to do the inner rocker panels, inner doors, ground lugs, battery posts, stuff under the hood, etc.. now. Go on amazon, etc, and get a case of 6 aerosol cans of Fluid Film. Home Depot was selling the aerosol cans of FF real cheap a month or two back, like under $4/can. Not sure it that's still a thing.

 

[Vgreid]

My 2020 ‘nox was built in Canada and lives in MI. It is still quite good underneath. Just curious was yours built in Canada or MX?