....I'm proper bummed out Oppo.

"RallyDarkstrike - Fan of 2-cyl FIATs, Eastern Bloc & Kei cars" (rallydarkstrike)
04/26/2019 at 15:13 • Filed to: rust

Hot on the heels of !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , which has been slathered with lithium grease since then...

......I just noticed THIS peeking out from behind the trim panel on my trunk lid this afternoon:

Uh oh...trying to get that trim panel off is a bit of a faff, but I took the interior trim panel off inside the trunk lid to look behind it and...

Great, that is a lot of rust coming through around the license plate light and trim panel clip holes...

No water leaking in as in no pool of water in my trunk, and I don’t see any anywhere but this is proper sad Oppo, as I quite like my little Accent and am torn now.

It’s got 155,000kms on it, which isn’t a lot by a lot of people’s standards, but things rust a lot here as I live near the Atlantic and Canadian winters mean salted roads and you don’t see many cars in good shape past 200,000kms here usually...hell, I get it undercoated (though not Krown or Rust Check) every year. Sure, it’s not bad rust, and I will get the rust on the wheel well fixed in a week or two as (as far as I know) there isn’t any anywhere else on the body, so the body should be OK for awhile...but this feels like a “beginning of the end” as it’s probably only going to get worse.

Do I just start driving it until it rusts out without getting the rust fixed...? With my logic hat on, it’s a basic ecobox that isn’t worth squat anyway at this point, so that would be the logical thing to do....but it’s not ‘just a car’ to me as mom likes to say...it’s a loyal companion and a buddy that has carried me through all sorts of events in life.

A used hatch from the local pick and pull yard would be $70, plus the cost of the parts on it if I don’t decide to strip mine first. I’d need two people to get it off though, and none of my friends are ‘car guys’ enough to help me there, plus the yard is over an hour away, and I’d have to swap it onto my car in their parking lot...

*sigh*...po or Humdrum...

DISCUSSION (17)

sony1492 > RallyDarkstrike - Fan of 2-cyl FIATs, Eastern Bloc & Kei cars
04/26/2019 at 17:02

$70 plus gas isn’t much, and although its worthless we dont enjoy cars for finacial reasons. Id buy the hatch, drag a friend along perhaps bribing them with food.

farscythe - makin da cawfee! > RallyDarkstrike - Fan of 2-cyl FIATs, Eastern Bloc & Kei cars
04/26/2019 at 17:05

you dont really need a friend to be a car guy to swap a trunk tho do you... i mean... you pretty much just need the muscle right

soooo... just find one that would be up for pizza/ movie gig whatever that happens to be an hours travel away and includes a teenie tiny bit of manual labour :p

V8VespaStoppie > RallyDarkstrike - Fan of 2-cyl FIATs, Eastern Bloc & Kei cars
04/26/2019 at 17:09

Everything you described sounds like a fun day at the pick and pull. Would help out if I lived closer.

RallyDarkstrike - Fan of 2-cyl FIATs, Eastern Bloc & Kei cars > V8VespaStoppie
04/26/2019 at 17:29

The only issue there is the local pick and pull is pretty small, as of the moment (just looked), they only have one Accent hatch in stock of my generation and it’s an e arly one that looks like it didn’t have an und eroating once in it’s life...(i.e. rust everywhere, including the hatch...)

mincz > RallyDarkstrike - Fan of 2-cyl FIATs, Eastern Bloc & Kei cars
04/26/2019 at 19:43

Dude, that sucks. I drove a red Accent hatchback of the same generation from 2007-2017. Now my dad drives it . Got like 135,000 miles on it and still going strong. Engine is solid, tranny shifts just fine. It’s got some rust bubbles above the driver-side rear wheel well like yours did, and I’m sure there is more elsewhere .

Sometimes I wish I kept it and got something else for dad. It was a great little car to throw around the twisty roads back home. Never let me down but once or twice when it blew a coilpack . I drove through the snowmageddon of 2009 on bald tires and lived to tell about it . Best of luck in your quest, sir!

RallyDarkstrike - Fan of 2-cyl FIATs, Eastern Bloc & Kei cars > sony1492
04/26/2019 at 21:06

There’s one friend who is a ‘car guy’, but he has a very.....indifferent?...personality, so may not want to bother.

I’ll certainly try though...the issue, as mentioned, is that the yard is a long ways away. It’s not so much the trip, but it’s more trying to find a place to fit it into my schedule... :(

RallyDarkstrike - Fan of 2-cyl FIATs, Eastern Bloc & Kei cars > farscythe - makin da cawfee!
04/26/2019 at 21:16

Several of them are an hour away, actually....but two of those have families and have very little free time and the third is a bit of a ‘car guy’, but a bit of a ‘brand snob’ and also quite indifferent to things in general, so trying to get him to help ma y be a hard ask...

Finding a hatch in the right color may be an issue as well...I wouldn’t care if the hatch were the wrong color, but it wouldn’t look right. :(

RallyDarkstrike - Fan of 2-cyl FIATs, Eastern Bloc & Kei cars > mincz
04/26/2019 at 21:20

Thanks friend! AFAIK it still has the original clutch unless it was replaced in the first 54,000kms of the car’s life (as that’s when I bought it used). Transmission shifts fine, engine is fine. I’ve really had no m echanical issues with it other than coil packs once or twice either! It’s basic (no A/C, no power anything, no ABS, no Cruise, no ESC), but I like that humbleness about it.

It’s also the first car I’ve ever tried truly doing anything myself on....nothing major as of yet, but it has that going for it as well. It goes in for an oil change on the 7th, and I still think I’ll try and get the wheel arch rust repaired...I just hope I don’t find rust anywhere else. Hopefully I can maybe find another hatch at the pick and pull yard...

sony1492 > RallyDarkstrike - Fan of 2-cyl FIATs, Eastern Bloc & Kei cars
04/26/2019 at 21:21

A little canister of colormatched paint then?

farscythe - makin da cawfee! > RallyDarkstrike - Fan of 2-cyl FIATs, Eastern Bloc & Kei cars
04/26/2019 at 21:28

you could always call ahead to the yard and ask if they’d be willing to help.. for a premium... or pizza

and yeah... the colour is an issue.. but you could always get a wrap (be it just the trunk or the whole car

pip bip - choose Corrour > RallyDarkstrike - Fan of 2-cyl FIATs, Eastern Bloc & Kei cars
04/27/2019 at 08:23

chances are a used one will be no better, fix what you have

RallyDarkstrike - Fan of 2-cyl FIATs, Eastern Bloc & Kei cars > pip bip - choose Corrour
04/27/2019 at 08:48

I’m not sure how easily they COULD fix what I have, as there’s very little access to the inside of it to fix the rust there...a new replacement one is over $1000 and to get that tiny but of wheel well rust fixed, I was quoted like...$700. The car is probably only worth like $3000 max at this point, which is why I’m torn. :(

pip bip - choose Corrour > RallyDarkstrike - Fan of 2-cyl FIATs, Eastern Bloc & Kei cars
04/27/2019 at 08:50

there is clearly a design issue that all will suffer from though. a used one will achieve nothing really

RallyDarkstrike - Fan of 2-cyl FIATs, Eastern Bloc & Kei cars > sony1492
04/27/2019 at 09:45

Could try to repaint it. Luckily my car is the most common color for them, so I would just hope I could find a rust-free one in my color. :)

RallyDarkstrike - Fan of 2-cyl FIATs, Eastern Bloc & Kei cars > pip bip - choose Corrour
04/27/2019 at 09:47

I’m not sure it is though, as I’ve never seen an Accent of my generation rusting out in that same place. I am thinking it was caused by a shop that I got to remove some very rusted out license plate bolts a few years back (the dealer had put in those one-way ‘security’ kind as well...) that probably scratched things up behind the place that I never knew about...

pip bip - choose Corrour > RallyDarkstrike - Fan of 2-cyl FIATs, Eastern Bloc & Kei cars
04/27/2019 at 09:53

ok then, my bad.

i just assumed it would’ve afflicted them all

RallyDarkstrike - Fan of 2-cyl FIATs, Eastern Bloc & Kei cars > pip bip - choose Corrour
04/27/2019 at 10:50

No worries! I could be wrong, I just don’t recall seeing any with rust in that same area! :)