Quote:
Originally Posted by cRiPpLe_rOoStEr
To some extent, it does surprise me how many Americans seem to treat a car as disposable, while in countries such as mine even if a car won't be babied or turned into a trailer queen it's not so unusual to see some attempts to patch a rust hole with different degrees of either a good craftsmanship or a makeshift...
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Does Brazil spread millions of tons of rock salt on the roads each winter? Just my home state of Michigan uses 2 million tons of salt a year.
Any car can be kept on the road indefinitely if you are willing to willing to spend the money to replace it piece by piece.
Before modern rust-proofing it wasn't uncommon for cars to rust from the inside out. By the time you could see rust on the outside the entire inside structure was rusted away and you would be cutting out sections of the unibody and welding in replacements (if you could find good metal to weld to)
Then there are the economics. Body shop work in the USA is expensive. This is pretty normal pricing:
https://burlscollision.com/labor-rates/
The materials are cheap but labor is expensive. You can easily spend thousands to repair rust holes only to have to repair them again a few years later.
My understanding of Brazilian economics the opposite is true. Labor is cheap but parts (and cars) are expensive. That makes something like bodywork economically viable since it is mostly labor. It is the same in Mexico. Mexican companies buy up wrecked cars in the USA that have been totaled by the insurance companies. It isn't economical to repair them in the USA but at $2 to $3 an hour for body work in Mexico they can spend the many hours to fix them.