[deveac]

I planned on keeping my Wrangler for life when I ordered it, and so optioned it as mechanically simple as possible, including roll-down windows, manual trans, and no keyless entry. Stuff like this is, in part, why. Threw an aftermarket wireless CarPlay head unit in, and that is all the tech I need and more.

[jmann99999]

I bought my 2018 Wrangler with the same idea... keep it for life. That was also the last year they offered the "lifetime" warranty. Glad I went for that.

So far, the Jeep has been fairly reliable, with my issues being:

- Electric door locks and mirrors stopped working

- Radiator leaked

- CV Joints

The Lifetime Warranty has now broken even (~$2500).

Unfortunately, now my issue is rust, and the warranty doesn't cover that.

[jrnng]

Check out woolwax or similar products for rust prevention

[ssl-3]

Rust. I live in the north half of Ohio, so my stuff gets bathed in salty brine for several months out of the year and rust is a real problem for me.

What I've found that works (for me):

For stuff that isn't yet rusted, Fluid Film. It's easy to buy (it's on the shelf even at Wal-Mart). It's made primarily from lanolin, which is a product of the wool industry and is how sheep stay dry. If I were Very Serious about it, I'd find a shop that would cover the whole bottom of the vehicle (and anything that can be reached through holes) in the stuff and pay them to get that done. (I buy it in spray cans; some shops buy it in 55 gallon drums.)

For stuff that is definitely already rusting, Corrosion-X. It's some kind of oily chemical soup that is supposed to prevent existing rust from getting worse, and also prevent new rust. One interesting feature is that it's available in 3 different viscosities; vaguely speaking, those viscosities are thin, medium, and elephant snot.

The thin one does a fantastic job of creeping around to cover even unseen surfaces, but it washes off the fastest. The thicker ones hang around longer and creep less. (Tradeoffs, I guess.)

I prefer Fluid Film just because it's more natural than some other things are and that makes me feel good in some way that I don't care to rationalize, but Fluid Film is not very good at recovering from existing rust.

Corrosion-X, though? I can get the thin version of that worked into the joint of a completely rusted-stuck pair of box-jointed pliers and have them working very well (and looking fairly decent, though not "new") in a few minutes with a shop rag. I've heard stories of it being used to hose down whole electrical rooms in ocean-going boats. It's amazing stuff. (And it's expensive.)

The practical downside is that these products all feel greasy, and they all turn black with enough time and enough miles. They're all ugly.

For visible painted body panels, the best way I know to deal with small spots of rust from rock chips and stuff is to go full-ass on it. Get the Dremel out, pick an appropriate abrasive stone, and start grinding those little pinholes out until there's nothing but clean, shiny metal surrounded by paint. And then: Fill in with touchup paint that matches the factory paint code. (It's never perfect, but it does get easier to do a job that looks better than little rust spots do with some practice...and the little spots then don't turn into big spots.)

Rust never sleeps. Good luck.

[greenavocado]

Fluid Film is inferior to Noxudol.

There are many shops in the US which will apply Noxudol both underneath and inside body panels and frame rails with special 360 degree applicators. I believe it is a formula developed in Scandinavia.

All of my cars are sprayed with the stuff for over a decade with no other maintenance.

[ssl-3]

Thanks for the tip. I hadn't heard of that one before.

~3 minutes of homework just now tells me that this is something I should probably have on the shelf in the garage.

[greenavocado]

Toyota required dealers to apply Noxudol to the new replacement truck frames as part of their recall service for rust.

[ssl-3]

Toyota may in fact be the world's foremost expert on recalling and replacing entire truck frames.

I don't know if that's a blessing or a curse for Noxudol as an agent of longevity, but I'll try to see all of that in a positive light. :)

[jmann99999]

Thanks for the suggestions! Unfortunately, I have it on top and under the paint. I'll take a look at these for the uncovered portions.

[kylehotchkiss]

You just need to bedliner your undercarriage

[ssl-3]

Perhaps, but: I don't want to deal with avoiding permanently-affixed overspray on parts that don't want to be coated.

I also don't want to work with fasteners that are coated in bedliner: I'm already not having a fun time of things when I'm crawling under an old car doing some manner of repair. I want every possible advantage while I'm down there, and a well-stuck layer of bedliner seems like a big disadvantage.

As a point of comparison, stuff like Fluid Film [and the others that have been mentioned] can be applied to just about anything under the car that's metal (including bendy things like springs), and can be scrubbed off sometime later if it accidentally gets on body-colored parts using just soap, water, and some elbow grease.

Fasteners that are both rust-free and oily usually come apart like a dream when the time comes, and oily coatings that stay goopy tend to self-heal after being abraded by whatever the tires might kick up from the road.

Fluid coatings seem like the right set of tradeoffs in this non-ideal world compared to something like bedliner.

They're not perfect, but nothing is.

(Ideally, I'd live in a place that doesn't require driving through brine... but my world isn't ideal.)

[olelele]

...how do you know the consistency of elephant snot?

[ssl-3]

I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description ["elephant snot"], and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it.

[olelele]

:)

[olelele]

There was a car mechanic who lived next to where my dad grew up in rural Sweden. He spent enormous amounts of time on the cars he got in to fix and took out automatic locks and all electric wiring to the point of the car being basically invincible to time and very simple to repair again. Some cars he never managed to finish fixing and they were simply left forever in his front yard... My grandma drives a 25 y o Suzuki Alto that is basically this car. It even has the old school non powered steering. Runs great still, has no issues since she only drives in summer.

There is really something to be said for old mechanics and simple electric solutions.

These days _everything_ has an embedded microcontroller and a touchscreen. I'm more on the luddite edge myself...

If anyone is interested I can try to dig up an interview with the car mech on youtube (in swedish) :)

[shtzvhdx]

What year is your wrangler?