How bad is this rust?

[KanyeFresh]

Hi all,

 

Recently picked up this 2004 Pathfinder Chinook. It was a good deal and it only has 110,000 kms. However, coming from Alberta with the terrible winters and road salt, the underbody has a fair bit of rust. I don't have much experience in this area but does this rust look to be mostly surface or significant enough to affect the structural integrity? The body exterior is in great shape rust-wise, the rocker panels and under the fenders are okay, and the strut towers appear to be fine. Is there anything I should do about it (por-15, undercarriage sprays, or just let it be and accept that this vehicle wont last forever and will likely be repairing parts that rust apart over the years)?

 

https://imgur.com/a/W2GPz3c

 

Thanks!

[Slartibartfast]

 

That doesn't look terrible, but I'd want to take a close look at the fuel/brake lines and around the strut towers.  Have a look at the pictures here to see where the towers rot, and marvel at the horrorshow of hack repair that Nissan wanted their dealers to do. Some R50s also had rust issues with the fuel filler, but it looks like they may have figured that out by the time they made yours.

 

Unless you're going to clean the holy hell out of everything first, I don't think any paint will stick properly, and paint that doesn't stick just traps more moisture. An oily coating wouldn't be a bad idea. One guy I watch on Youtube uses bar and chain oil cut with thinner so it sprays more easily.

[KanyeFresh]

Awesome, thanks for the reply. I'll take a closer look at those areas. I think I'll just stick to spray coatings and not worry about doing any major restorative or paint work. As much as I love this vehicle, I don't need or expect it to last forever and probably isn't worth dumping lots of money into rust removal.

[adamzan]

That doesn't look bad at all. I'd get under there with a wirebrush and some por15 if you get bored. Otherwise just keep oil spraying it. Looks all surface rust to me. Check the strut towers though although they look ok in the pics.

[Dozzerwd21]

R50? Looks like surface rust.

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[KanyeFresh]

Sounds good. Appreciate the responses guys.

[alexandrite92]

I think you can easily deal with that rust. 

[Mr_Reverse]

Nissan did have a recall for rust issues in the strut towers. Basically it was to inspect for structural damage. It being a recall, it is no cost to the owner for the inspection and repair if repairable. Might be something to look into. 

[Dozzerwd21]

Nissan did have a recall for rust issues in the strut towers. Basically it was to inspect for structural damage. It being a recall, it is no cost to the owner for the inspection and repair if repairable. Might be something to look into. 

Has anyone tried doing this?

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[Mr_Reverse]

A local friend of mine took his 99 in a few years back and they did the repair on one side. The other was ok. I spent 3 years at my local Nissan dealership and we would see an R50 come in for it every couple of months or so. The guys there told me a couple years earlier, they saw a lot of them and a few were deemed not repairable, Nissan bought those ones back. 

Not too bad since Nissan said Utah isn't a rust state(surprised us there, lots of salt and alkali here and still use a lot of salt in the winter on the roads) but still has the rust state recalls done here. 

[Dozzerwd21]

How long ago?

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[MhelJay]

22 hours ago, Mr_Reverse said:

A local friend of mine took his 99 in a few years back and they did the repair on one side. The other was ok. I spent 3 years at my local Nissan dealership and we would see an R50 come in for it every couple of months or so. The guys there told me a couple years earlier, they saw a lot of them and a few were deemed not repairable, Nissan bought those ones back. 

Not too bad since Nissan said Utah isn't a rust state(surprised us there, lots of salt and alkali here and still use a lot of salt in the winter on the roads) but still has the rust state recalls done here. 

My aunt live in Utah and they definitely do some preventive measures against rust.

[Mr_Reverse]

It was a few years ago for my friend, and I left the dealership a little over a year ago, but I do remember doing a rust inspection on an R50 a couple months before I left, and I did a lot of steering intermediate shaft replacements on first gen Xterras and Frontiers under rust recalls.

[adamzan]

There were A LOT of them here in Ontario. My parents had their 2000 bought back. They were trading it in on a new Xterra at the time, and I told my dad to take it in for the recall, they gave him $5500 for the truck, instead of the measly $1600 the dealer was offering for trade. It wasn't even that bad but the dealer pushed them to buy it back because they were selling a new truck anyway. I'm pretty sure one of the mechanics took it and re plated it for himself, even if they weren't supposed to. It was pretty clean otherwise and had a 5 speed.

[Dozzerwd21]

None if that in California. Never have I heard of anything like that.

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