fastsuv

I am looking to buy a used car for one of my kids.

No more buying used cars from the Western New York area (where I live)because of rust issues. I am looking at cars about 8-10yrs old. I don't mind mechanical repairs but no rust fixing.

I have located a few cars in the area between Louisville and Lexington in Kentucky.

Is rusting an issue in cars from that area? I am hoping there are some members that live in Kentucky that can give me some advice before I drive 8+ hours to look at them.

Thanks
Steve

sleeper

The thing I would try & be careful of, is cars that have been a flood.

User Omega

You need to keep in mind that just because a car is for sale in a certain area doesn't mean that its from that area or was even used in that area. I would run a carfax on any car you are looking at to find out where its been.

Cars from that area are less likely to have rust than where I am from (they get much less snow, thus less salt put down) but they aren't as clean as say Arizona cars. My car is a 2010. It lived some of its life in Southern Ohio and shows no sign of rusting. The factory exhaust from the cat flange back was rusted bad but nothing else. I replaced all of that with a stainless system.

sleeper

User Omega- Interesting, did you know the factory HHR exhaust is an aluminized Stainless exhaust.

User Omega

Where have you found this detail? There would be no reason to aluminize even some crappy magnetic 409 stainless steel. Its why they don't aluminize the cat pipe. That is 409 or a close relative and I assumed why it wasn't rotted at all. Just a bit dirty looking. That is usually kept to mild steels to prevent rust which is what I suspect mine had on it.

sleeper

It is in repair manuals, & etc. Common knowledge I thought.


You could also find it here in a search.

User Omega

I attempted that before making the post as that is the number one thing people seem to say here instead of just listing the source which is what I do for people. This site is not as easy as many forums to search. It's loaded with so much misinformation and absolutely ignorant questions. I'm used to the performance world forums where everyone seems to have a pretty good knowledge base to begin with



Internally I tried both threads and posts searches... I gave up after 3 or so pages of each.

"Stainless Exhaust"
"Factory Exhaust Stainless"
"Stainless"
"Factory cat back"
and on and on


Google I tried many terms and even searched for the new parts and looked for material (was not listed).


I also performed a search on google for aluminizing stainless steel as I had never heard of it and wouldn't understand the point. I only found the lowest of grades having it done and finding nothing when it came to using it for exhaust systems when speaking stainless. Ferritic stainless is highly resistant to corrosion. Not as great as say 304 or 316 but for an automotive application I would expect it to last the life of the vehicle without a coating.

Oldblue

My catalytic converter pipe is 304 stainless, my Walker cat back is aluminized stainless .
After all these years , yes there’s a lot of sediment to sift thru in the search window, but when you find what your looking for, it’s golden!

User Omega

Sort of off topic but this leaves me with even more questions.

My understanding is that the Walker mufflers were 100% stainless but the resonator pipe itself was standard steel that has been aluminized. I don't see them claiming stainless on that resonator pipe anywhere (I admit at first look I assumed they both were stainless). Maybe this changed at some point? I am assuming that you did not order yours yesterday. I discovered this in my search to find anything stainless exhaust wise that had been aluminized.

User Omega

You will also notice there is no warranty on pipes and resonators from them vs other parts having 2/25k and 5/50k on the noted stainless parts.