Whilst fitting a replacement exhaust to the better halves Cinq today I noticed a suprising amount of rust near to where the upper parts of the rear suspension fits onto the body.

I am now a bit worried as the MOT is due in a couple of weeks although I did have a good poke and there are no holes, but I was very suprised to find it especially as Fiats are no longer supposed to rust.. It looks a bugger to weld if needed as well due to its location.

Has anyone else sufferend from this, the car is a 1997 BTW and is otherwise pretty good nick.

Simon.

I suspect its the rear subframe that you have seen. These are not galvanised, so they do show rust, but they are quite thick. I've never seen one rust through........yet.

Cheers

D

Difficult to judge how bad it is without pics, but anything made of steel will rust if exposed to damp and UK road salt.

Generally the coatings break down at a point where there's a sharp edge or flex and it carries on from there. What is surprising is how slowly cars rust today.

Anyhow, remove the rust as best you can, passivate it and slap some paint on. You should be fine.

I have a sporting cinq 1997 that had more hidden rust than well something with hidden rust. It some was in the area you mentioned, I found lots of holes hence massive amounts of welding. Maybe some p45 filler and a gppd sanding could solve it. If you are welding though be careful as sparks fly around in areas like that, I have a very hot rocked jumper now!

Once you clear it up, use underseal or similar to prevent future rust

Don't use filler! It has no structural strength and you're just passing on a potential death trap to some poor sod.

Overhead MIG welding is not something to do if you can avoid it (or like wearing leather suits!) -- tipping the car over (needn't be on it's side) really helps or use oxy acetalene or TIG.

It is actually on the body where the subframe fixes to it. Hopefully I can clean it up and paint it when the weather gets warmer, but If I have to weld it I will need to remove the fuel tank and possibly drop the subframe to do it properly. Luckily my brother is a excellent welder with a few classic car restorations under his belt, so I can probably get it done for the price of gas, wire and some beers.

try wire brushing the surface rust off then give it a poke or 2 with a screwdriver
what i did with most of the rust underneath the car