Africa Automotive March-April digital issue 2023

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Auto TipsMarch-April issue l 2023By BEN WOJDYLA and STEF SCHRADERHow toPrevent andRemove Ruston Your CarLike a Pro34 Africa Automotive News l 2023An ominous brown stain on the fender. Abubble in the paint at the bottom of a door.Soaked floors after hitting a puddle. These aresigns the iron worm has been hard at work:rust.Otherwise fine cars are routinely sent to early gravesbecause they become rusty cars, even though it’s alargely avoidable problem. With iron-based metals,battling oxidation can feel like a Sisyphean task. Inspite of the advanced coatings and alloys developedby chemists and engineers, iron’s unstable chemicalmakeup means it will always succumb to rust in anatural environment. In fact, iron and steel (an alloyconsisting of iron and carbon) will completely reduce toiron oxide and other constituent elements over a longenough period of time.So, how to stop rust on a car? First you need tounderstand how cars become rusty, and what your car’s
March-April issue l 2023Car rustand formability. However, this added strength comes at acost, as it adds impurities that accelerate the formationof rust.Exposed steel rusts at different rates dependingon several factors: alloy components, thickness, theenvironment the steel lives in, and the type of heattreating the steel undergoes. Very poorly made cars inthe 1970s began showing surface rust as soon as theyhit the docks. Completely untreated raw sheet steel canrust through in as little as a few years.Then there’s the effect of salt. Road salts and othercontaminants dissolved in water act as electrolytes.When electrolytes are introduced to a chemical reaction,they speed up the exchange of molecular components.For drivers, this means that dirty or salty water trappedsomewhere in the car’s body makes that spot rust faster.It also explains why cars in northern climates where saltis used in winter as well as cars that spend a lot of timenear the ocean are prone to rot.This is why automakers do so much to try and preventcorrosion. A huge amount of testing and material scienceis dedicated to keeping your car from dissolving awaybeneath you. Aluminum and magnesium componentsare becoming popular not only because of their lightweight, but also because they corrode at rates thatare unnoticeable within a human lifetime. However,those metals are expensive and automakers use themsparingly as a result.problem areas are—only then can you save your ridefrom its brown, flaky blemishes, keeping your pride andjoy on the road for a long, long time.Why Do Cars Rust?Rust forms as a result of the electrochemical breakdownof iron-based metals. This breakdown is the resultof oxidation, which is the process where iron surfacemolecules react with oxygen in the environment andproduce a new molecule, Fe2O3, otherwise known asiron oxide. That iron oxide is rust.Pure iron doesn’t oxidize as aggressively. Examine an oldiron engine block and you’ll see a thin surface layer ofrust but little penetration into the metal. Unfortunately,iron alone isn’t a particularly good material for buildingcars, so today’s cars typically use steel alloys. Addinga dollop of carbon to iron creates steel, which offersdramatic improvements in flexibility, tensile strength,Alloying elements added into cars’ steel such as nickeland chromium can help stave off rust, but nothing isfoolproof—everything eventually corrodes. Modernsheet steel also comes off the roll with highly durablecoatings. Those are further augmented in the finalassembly plants when freshly made vehicle bodies aredipped in baths of anti-corrosion agents before thepainting process.However, the road-facing side of the car turns into onebig sandblasting cabinet at highway speeds, and thosedips and coatings wear off over time. This is why everycar owner needs to periodically inspect their car for rustregardless of where it lives or what kind of additionalunderbody coating it may have come with.How to Repair Car RustRust forms in stages, and knowing where a problem spotis in that decomposition process can help point you tothe right solution. Here are the three main stages of rustand how to fix them.Surface RustThe first signs of a problem pop up in paint nicks, cracks,and scratches. An easy fix.Surface rust is just that: on the surface. Leave a car withAfrica Automotive News l 2023 35
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