Looks sorta like my quarters. I don't have rust on my doors like in picture, or anywhere else for that matter.

 

You must live in Canada.

 

Chicagoland area. The winters do take a toll on my maximas. Lol

 

This actually made me cringe a little bit... I guess because I have to combat a lot of rust here in Indianapolis too.

I saw a guy with really bad rust on his rear wheel well, almost to this stage, just last week.

 

The rust was present when I bought mine. I suppose I had plans to fix it just haven't gotten around to it.

 

The trunk was rusting too but I was too scared to take pictures ><

 

Looks like a car from the 70s.

 

Actually was a 20th anniversary edition 5th gen according to trunk stickers

 

Ha, mines an anniversary edition too, same color as well. I looked on my car to see if I happened to have any new rust spots after seeing the pictures. I'm glad to report that I do not. Lol

 

I forgot to mention that I'm just shy of 200k so, the little rust that I do have could obviously be waaaay worse.

 

that's pretty bad, I mean winters take a toll on Maxima's of this gen but you have to literally give zero ***** to have one rust out that badly

 

Mine has a super small spot on the bottom of the rear quarter, near the side skirt. I consider that pretty good considering the age & that I'm in Canada.

 

Do domestic vehicles suffer like this or is this a Japanese thing in the Snow belt areas?

 

^^ That rust is pretty bad.

But it all stems from a poorly cared for car....even in the snow regions.

Ive seen other Maximas of the same age, from bad climate areas with horrid winters, have no rust. If you keep the car washed/waxed properly and care for it in the winter time like keeping the wheel wells and underbody clean of salt....it will last

Ive seen quite a few 5th gens with perfectly good looking rad supports too, and then many other Maximas they are just rotted.

 

Do you need to hose down your car like a boat everytime you drive it because of salt?

 

I see a lot of 5 gens in my area with that same passenger rear quater with rust on it....mine is starting to show too. No rust anywhere else.

 

No, of course not. There are certain treatments that are applied for winter under car.

 

I don't think those treatments are offered by anyone near me. I just make sure I rinse the car off in a touch-less carwash with undercarriage spray at least once a week in the winter.

 

I live in Connecticut and I wouldn't say it's a Japanese thing. I've seen lots of 2000ish model year domestics around here with rust worse than that, particularly GM cars (Buick Centuries, Chevy Impalas, etc.).

However, pretty much every 5th gen I see has some rust at least starting along the rear wheel wells, although I've never seen anything like that on the doors. I would attribute that to the owner simply not taking care of the car. I wash my car once a week when they put salt down on the roads, and most other people I know do the same.

02-06 Altimas also have a very common rust spot on the passenger side floor boards. This happens a lot in New England, and it will end up letting water into the cabin when it rains if it gets bad enough.

 

I do this because I'm incredibly picky. It sucks when it's below freezing at 2AM and someone stole the hose nozzle so you have to use your thumb, and then it ends up spraying half on you and half on the car.

 

see these all the time in canada... thats why i bought a winter car to enjoy my maxima when the snow and salt goes away. the least rusting that holds up very very well older car with higher mileage is the G from Infiniti

 

This is for all 5th gen owners who want to avoid rust in the future or slow down your current rust get a couple cans of rust proof spray cans and spray these two areas good,1)inside the rocker panel and 2nd inside the trunk (remove the liner) These two spots are notorious for collecting water,Also apply grease on the fender lip if you want also,i used marine grease and this has stopped the rust from growing indefinitely.These are the spray cans i used.

 

I was born in Massachuesettes....and remember our cars having rust on them...I thought maybe the cars were rustproofed better these days, and maybe todays vehicle used better materials metallurgically speeching...

 

I mean my quarters and trunk are going, as well as a spot on the dirvers door. No where near this however. But I assume the car was probably from Quebec. I bought mine when it was 4 years old and had it rust proofed and detailed regularly, yet rust still came up. I found out after that it came from Quebec and drivers there treat there cars a lot worst then we do, plus they use a lot more salt. All the work I did only slowed it down. I'm pretty sure this car came from there as well, but the owner neglected it completely.

 

My passenger quarter panel and rocker panel is pretty eaten but it's nowhere like that on the door. It's pretty annoying when you move to the south and every 5th gen you see is damn near pristine.

 

only the East does the salt crap, here in Alberta we only do sand and rock in winter

stuff from Ontario is insane, couple years ago at work we did an out of Province inspection on a 3-4 year old Mazda 3 from Ontario and had to fail it because the frame rusted and rotted out already

 

^
Mazda3 are known for their rust though

 

a 4 year old one shouldnt have frame rot, thats nuts. nearly every Ontario vehicle ive worked on has that oily anti-rust stuff that gets EVERYWHERE on it

 

First gen Mazda3 were supposedly very bad but supposedly problem has been fixed

 

^^^I think that will buff out.

 

Found picture of one of my Camry



Can't believe I drove that around for a couple months with all that rust ><

 

first gen mazda 3's are really bad, even if you took decent care of them you would get a little somwhere
5th Gen's paint is pretty poor for the most part so I guess that's why they rust out pretty easily. Probably due to import restrictions or something when they were new

 

my two quarter panels on my 2001 max started to bubble out with rust ..got it fixed and repainted,,,but they told me the rust may return on the insides of the fenders,,so i got some thick roof tar along with heavy rubber gloves,,used my hands to coat the undersides of the wheel wells ,,made it so thick,,..took a while for it to cure to hardness,,so far so good

 

Both of my quarters have issues so I rattle can or brush coat prime & paint to try to slow it down where it will look as presentable as it can. Great car but the rust does annoy me. To me it doesn't make sense to spend 600-700 to repair a 115k north east car which is worth $3-3500 and the rust will return. I own my car for ten years and it is garaged.

 

Thats because of the temps. I'd prefer a mix, but less salt is used in the Prairies because the temps are low to the point where salt does not do anything.

 

That rust on the wheel arch is so common it's practically a feature. But, I've never seen a 5th gen with rust on the door by the window like that. I wonder if the small fixed glass piece had to be replaced at some point in the past, and they didn't get the seal right?

 

arches look just like mine-can only imagine what the lower rad support looks like. nothing on the actual door though, never seen that.

 

i work downtown toronto on call 24/7 for salting and the **** is harsh. had some salt in a broken cuticle and that was really painful, it didn't sting but actually hurt lol even a few of those grains make it into my shoe and if my foot is sweaty the salt will take away the moisture, god knows it'd probably eat my eyeballs if i wanted to rub an itchy eye lid

 

Our crews just dumped so much salt on the roads that all our nice new black pavement is covered in a white blanket of salt about an inch thick. Retarded. And this was only our first snowfall with just a few inches.

They use way too much salt here, then again as badly as people drive here they probably need to...