I have rust on the n/s rear wheelarch. It started as bubbles but has now broken through the paint. Shame really as its an Elite that I have run for 4 years as my company hack so its been properly looked after, all genuine parts and all faults immediately fixed and everything works.

Havent had a rusty car for a long time, but memories from my youth tell me that once it sets in its terminal. As the rest of the car is in fine nick (but now on 170k miles) is it worth trying to get the wheelarch sorted (and any idea what it would cost?) or is it time for ebay.

o-meg-a wrote on 30. Mar 2011 at 17:36:


If its possible to fix it then it would have to go to the local body repair place (not a dealer or bodyshop, just a bloke in a unit) so I would expect it to look ok when it came out.

At least it sounds like it might be worth me paying him a visit. I know on my older cars when I was starting out (Austin 1100, ford cortina) as soon as rust appeared that was it , the car would just turn to dust pretty quick.

And certainly not the end of a car!! by any means.

As long as nothing structural is hit, arches can rust away.
Come MOT time, just cover them with gaffa tape so there are no hard sharp edges, because that is what they fail on. Not the rust itself.