Is serious rust a problem with early models yet ?

Errrm oh dear!

My old red S reg was a rot box in the boot but the 51 plate seems to be ok. It has a 2" bodylift which is handy as it's easier to get to the underside of the bodywork & the top of the fuel tank with Waxoyl.

Mines a 2001 Y reg and i have a few holes in the rear floor. Will be getting patched up for the MOT and some form of waxoyl / protection aswell.

As a heads up to others, i had my seats down the other day and noticed a scab of rust just infront of each seatbelt bolt under the rear seats. Its just surface at the moment and about 2" but i'll be treating it and painting asap!.

I have the same on an 04... although a much smaller patch... maybe the size of a 10p

I think this maybe caused by condensation running down the back of the trim... as one day i noticed a lot of condensation, and a while later the floor felt damp. Is this feasible?

I treated it a couple of months ago, no sign of it returning

Could easily be the cause, i'll be having a good look underneath too as its a future mot failure if left untreated as its near the seatbelt mounts

I will get some pics of mine soon.

Do breakers like cam suzuki sell the floorpan do you know?

I cannot see any reason for the boot floor in particular to rust. The area around the jack storage point seems especially vulnerable and I assume the rust is from the outside in. I noticed on mine about 3 convex dents but how on earth could that have happened in the first place? I don't think mine has ever been off road and even if it had it is hard to see why that particular area suffers.
Howard.

Ive just finished welding up the holes in my floor today, it seems that the rust appears any where where there is a bracket or streghthening bar/crossmember under the floor, water probably gets trapped in there and rusts the floor from the bottom up. might be an idea to blast some waxoyl or similar stuff under there before it gets a hold.

Some pictures

Before i started with my rust poking screwdriver



After a bit of screwdriverage



I then cut out all the rusty bits but i didnt get any pictures of this i was busy and forgot.

Welded in some nice thick gauge steel thats not going to rust any time soon



Painted up, you can see the other problem areas around the seat belts, i cut out the worst of these and overlapped about 5mm



And finally a hole in the driver side sill i repaired last year.

Mine seems pretty good. Quite a lot of the panel work is zinc plated (and painted) though there are some exceptions such as the outer skin behind the rear wheels where it was originally covered with plastic trim.

The chassis is perfect as well as the floor and sills. It's a 1999 Spanish built soft top by the way.

This evening I took off the soft top above the front seats and found that the frame is rotten as a carrot and turned to dust in my hands. It wasn't a problem as I was going to make a rigid roof anyway.

Si

Just because I took a picture today of the underbody:

Don't like how it looks for a 4 year old car will have to do something about it in the summer.