It's normal for steel subframes and suspension arms - more expensive makes may have aluminium alloy parts which do not look as bad. Just jetwash under your car at least twice a year to get rid of salty caked on dirt.I think you only noticed it because the design of the car is such that they are so visible from these angles so perhaps Nissan should have used a better coating such as zinc hot dip. Nice boots BTW.

Edited by Hamsafar on 20/03/2015 at 18:30

That is what I'd do. Do you use aerosol cans or that shutz type gun they sell?

Placing a wet car in a garage that is not thoroughly dry, aggravates corrosion that has already started. I'm not a fan of jet washes or pressure washers. Yes they strip most of the dirt, but at the pressures they operate, they carry the dirt along and sandblast surfaces. Any weak paint is soon stripped off by them.

One thing you should never do is to pressure wash tyres and alloy wheels at close quarters under high pressure. It damages the tyres and alloys by penetrating the surface.

All cars soon get rusty suspension (steel) components, the components are designed and built for strength and integrity, not for cosmetic appearance.

Last new car I bought, a Fabia (again), straight from the showroom, I stripped all the wheels off, cleaned an lubricated hub mating surfaces, painted the drums, and cleaned and painted a lot of the major suspension bits - trailing arms were a priority - with industrial (spray) paint. Welds got extra coats.

Silicone spray on plastic liners to help stop dirt/muck sticking.

Two years/20k later when I took the rear wheels off, after cleaning, the suspension is like new, although the drums could have faired better with more preparation/paint.

Agreed I don't paint mating surfaces, just very very lightly grease (LM) to stop steel/alloy electrolytic corossion making it extremely difficult to remove wheels. I get your point about friction, but tough, my bolts will have to take it. Never had or known a wheel bolt fail in my life. If wheel/hub face friction were important they'd be keyed or something instead of mirror finish.

I don't grease or lubricate threads as they should dry torqued, lately being plagued by zinc leeching out of poor quality bolts (Skoda cars last three years) and filling the threads with white oxide. Cheap and nasty suppliers.

Edited by brum on 21/03/2015 at 18:59

The amount of area that my wheels contact the disc surfaces is minimal and I'm sure that any grease on that surface would easily be squeezed out by the clamping force applied by the wheel bolts. I only put some grease around the edge of the centre hole to stop the wheels rusting on.

Thank you for the comments.