Advice on Zeibarting my new CRV

working_stiff

I just took out a loan to purchase a 2003 Honda CRV (LX version). The body is in awesome shape, but I took it to our local Zeibart guy to see what he thought of the underside. He said it was worth Zeibarting, however they only do the frame. He quoted me a price of $400.

I'm just wondering if it would be worth it to get this done. Considering I'd like the vehicle to last at least 3 more years, which is the length of the loan I took out on it. The Zeibart place does a lot of business and I have seen his work on some other vehicles he has there and it looks pretty good.

Any advice / suggestions would be appreciated. Thank you.

working_stiff

Below are some pics I took of the underside of the CR-V.

kyfdx

working_stiff said:

I just took out a loan to purchase a 2003 Honda CRV (LX version). The body is in awesome shape, but I took it to our local Zeibart guy to see what he thought of the underside. He said it was worth Zeibarting, however they only do the frame. He quoted me a price of $400.

I'm just wondering if it would be worth it to get this done. Considering I'd like the vehicle to last at least 3 more years, which is the length of the loan I took out on it. The Zeibart place does a lot of business and I have seen his work on some other vehicles he has there and it looks pretty good.

Any advice / suggestions would be appreciated. Thank you.

$400 to spray a coating on a $4000 car, that's already 14 years old? Wasted money.

If your car's structural components are dangerously rusted, Ziebart won't fix it. And, if they aren't rusted after 14 years, then they aren't likely to develop any issues in the next three years.

(I won't even get into the dubious worth of Ziebart, in general)

working_stiff

Thanks for the reply. So judging by the photos how bad of shape do you think it is under there? It looks bad to me, but then I'm already apprehensive about under body rust because of what happened to my last car.

Mr_Shiftright

You could put it on a lift and using a sharp tool, check for perforation, or "corn flakes" (a flaking of rust chips). If all you have is surface rust, you can just apply some rust remover like OSFRO (available at Ace Hardware stores, usually). That should work for quite a while and give you peace of mind.

If you do have perforation or corn flakes, then you need to intervene on a more serious level than Zeibart--you can't undercoat over that. This might require welding in the worst case or replacement of certain suspension or detachable subframe parts. In the best case, wire-brushing with a power tool and then some Osfro for the corn flakes. For perforation, you must do something more drastic as this becomes structurally dangerous.

working_stiff

Thanks for the advice. We have a really good auto body shop here in town so I'll make an appointment to have them inspect it. Rather put that money into something that's gong to produce more structurally sound results.

isellhondas

kyfdx said:

working_stiff said:

I just took out a loan to purchase a 2003 Honda CRV (LX version). The body is in awesome shape, but I took it to our local Zeibart guy to see what he thought of the underside. He said it was worth Zeibarting, however they only do the frame. He quoted me a price of $400.

I'm just wondering if it would be worth it to get this done. Considering I'd like the vehicle to last at least 3 more years, which is the length of the loan I took out on it. The Zeibart place does a lot of business and I have seen his work on some other vehicles he has there and it looks pretty good.

Any advice / suggestions would be appreciated. Thank you.

$400 to spray a coating on a $4000 car, that's already 14 years old? Wasted money.

If your car's structural components are dangerously rusted, Ziebart won't fix it. And, if they aren't rusted after 14 years, then they aren't likely to develop any issues in the next three years.

(I won't even get into the dubious worth of Ziebart, in general)

You did a good job of pulling your punches with your answer. I totally agree with the advice given!

Here on the West Coast we know nothing about rust but it seems spraying something over existing rust isn't going to do much good. 400.00 seems like a lot of money for spraying some solution here and there under a car but what do I know?

berri

I'd think spraying something over already damaged metal would just encourage more moisture inside the metal area and faster deterioration.