Quote:
Originally Posted by MetroMPG
Car looks awesome. BUT! How well do plastic body panels adhere to rust?
Seriously... what's the low-down on Saturns that are subjected to lots of road salt? There must be an Achille's heel of corrosion in there somewhere.
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Our 2000 Saturn L100 was retired in late 2012 due in large part to worn out/broken suspension bits, springs, bushings, tie rod ends, struts, that all seemed to wear out at the same time at 307,000km. These would be considered regular wear and tear though at this kind of mileage wouldn't it? They just happened to all happen at the same time causing a death knell.
It would have easily gone much farther if we wanted to replace all those replaceable parts. There was very little rust on the body panels (hood roof, trunk are all metal, the plastic bits were all solidly attached, and the underneath structure was not at all bad, much better than many vehicles out there.
This was only one example, so not enough to build a case on. It had CounterAct anti-rust system installed.. but I cannot tell you how much difference that made or not. I am, however, still seeing that era Saturns driving around. My opinion is that they last better than average as far as salt-world is concerned.
There is no reason for plastic to metal body panel attachment points to rust any quicker than plastic to metal rocker panels on many vehicles now or any of the ground effects stuff that is simply clipped on. Like almost every vehicle I have ever had the bottom of the trunk/hatch was one of the first places to start rusting (narrowly beaten out by fenders on hondas) .
My subjective two cents.
-benphyr