Quote:
Originally Posted by MetroMPG
Delayed response...
I'm not crazy about it. Around here, a car painted that way always means someone has done shoddy rust repairs and is trying to hide the results. Even if that's not the case (probably not much rust on a Vancouver Island Miata), it's an automatic association for me.
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Ahh, sorry to disappoint, but the only rust she has is from chemical leaks/issues.
Meaning the brake fluid eating the paint under the hood and the area at the battery, which is probably due to not using an AGM battery. Plus that's the corner where she got dinged...that might have something to do with it.
No, really...car's don't rust out here, unless they get water trapped in them. Like the POS Metro 'vert I bought a number of years ago, which had sat in a field through the winter (rainy season) with a leaky roof prior to my buying it. It eventually died of "cancer".
Anywho, I quite agree with the automatic assumption of painted rockers and such covering up rust repair. That's always my first thought. But I checked her over before I bought her. And I've been under her there dozens of times. No rust. Not even rusty bolts(I had to take off a fair number of major bolts to change the differential).
You guys back east would be jealous of how much easier these things are to work on when the bolts aren't rusted solid.
My theory is that buddy buddy who used to race it, raced it either on a dirt track (or at least a pebble-strewn one), or else he lived down a dirt road, and the doors got a bunch of road-rash. I'd not have come to this theory if it wasn't for the pock-marked windshield, which I can only assume is from chronic pebbles/gravel smacking against it. (no cracks or even proper chips, but it's bad enough that I'm going to have it replaced this year, as it's annoying as heck and can make seeing through it impossible if the light hits at the right angle)
I like the two-tone. All the "cool" cars had two-tone paint (usually the "ground effects") when I was a kid...in the 80s and early 90s.
