What Causes Cars to Rust?
What Causes Cars to Rust?
How to Protect Your Vehicle from Rusting
Every car owner’s biggest dread is spotting rust on their vehicle. Unfortunately, rust can happen to any car at any time, especially when exposed steel on any component of a car’s body or undercarriage comes into contact with moisture.
Rust inspection should become a regular part of your summer car maintenance routine. Continue reading below to learn more about the various reasons why rust develops on a vehicle and how a certified auto body shop can help you prevent it from happening to your car.
If you’re looking for a professional auto body shop that can help restore your vehicle from rust damage, contact Trinity Sails and Repair in Nome, Alaska, today to discover how our team of professionals can help.
What Causes Rust?
Several factors can cause rust formation on a vehicle.
Rain
Rain is the most significant way for moisture to get into touch with your car’s metal. When an iron-containing item is exposed to moisture, rust develops. When the two substances come into contact, an atomic reaction occurs, resulting in oxidation, causing rust to develop.
Paint Damage
Your car is very susceptible to rust due to exposed metal due to paint damage. Scratches penetrating the clear layer are unlikely to cause rust, but any scratch that exposes bare metal is vulnerable. Scratches with a dent or crease, such as those caused by a door ding, are particularly vulnerable because the paint may appear to be intact, but flaking can occur inside the crease.
Salt
Rust is more likely to occur when exposed to salt, such as deicing agents on state highways and roadways. When coupled with your car’s metal, salt is an electrolyte that produces the conditions for rust to form. Salt can build up on your vehicle’s underbody over time, causing rusting that you may not notice for a long time.
Three Types of Rust
Surface Rust
Surface rust is the least destructive sort of iron oxide, and it can be removed if dealt with quickly.
Scale Rust
Surface rust will gradually turn into scale rust if minor dings, nicks, or scratches on a car are ignored for too long. Small pits appear on the afflicted region, often accompanied by a blistered or bubbled paint surface, indicating that this type of material is significantly more corrosive.
Penetrating Rust
If you don’t catch and remove scale rust promptly, the corrosion process will progress to penetrating rust, which devours car metal. At this point in the corrosion process, holes will start to appear, and the afflicted car parts will start breaking apart, jeopardizing the vehicle’s structural integrity.
The Number One Auto Body Shop in Nome, Alaska
Rust that has just started on the automobile’s surface can be cleaned, and the finish resurfaced, but rust that has had more time to form can seep deeper into the car and cause more severe damage. Luckily, with a bit of care and preventative maintenance from a certified auto body shop, keeping your car rust-free isn’t impossible.
Contact Trinity Sails and Repair today to learn more about why we are the number one auto body shop and how our auto body shop can help you with your vehicle’s rust repairs.