In my opinion cars are excellent at resisting the effects of salt laden northern winters. (Especially when you remember Rootes rot-boxes rusting through in 18 months )
But-are all cars the same these days ?
Are cars made for ,say Spain, or Greece just as winter proof as cars made for the UK or Sweden ?
Would it be economic to fiddle around with different levels of waxing or galvanizing or are the makers looking to save every penny ?
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There is some myth (urban or otherwise) that Cypriot versions of Euroboxes are not as well sealed in the nether regions....dunno if its true or not.
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It is also said that cars produced for the Japanese market lack the undersealing of cars destined for the UK.
Again, how true this is I don't know but.............
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It is also said that cars produced for the Japanese market lack the undersealing of cars destined for the UK. Often garbage.
Even HJ keeps the myth going with his MX5 comments Jap market Eunos Roadsters were not rustproofed from new. Even though I have a UK model, I have no bias against imports, comparing the underside of imports shows the same coatings as a UK model.
However, one of my bikes is a Honda, made in Spain, and it is definately not up to th standard of a Jap model when it comes to coatings on fasteners.
Martin
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It is also said that cars produced for the Japanese market lack the undersealing of cars destined for the UK.
I had also heard this, so when I had an imported Japanese car inspected I specifically asked about the underseal, the reply "the underseal quality appears as normal UK spec".
This is only one car, but...
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This has been covered before many moons ago.
Any production engineer would question the economics of mix and match processes on one production line.
Cars for several different global markets follow each other off the production line eg, UK, Greece, UK, Sweden, Spain... and so on. Production rates are typically one every 2 minutes, there would have to be a particularly good cost arguement to go to the expense at being able to say switch on or off a protection process on the bodyshell, especially as this part of the production process will be heavily flow orientated. The only possibly economic way of doing this would be to have two or more lines treating body panels and shells. In addition it creates a further logistical problem in that a bodyshell with UK winterproofing and the same without would each need a different part number. The more part numbers you have the more Work in Progress you need to keep your plant running efficiently. This involves more cost and you affect the ability to change the production schedule to meet changes in demand. IE what would happen if you needed more cars for the UK (winterproofed) but you only had available non winterproofed bodyshells that you could build up within a day or two?
Where the assembled specifications differ between regions, this is a different matter. It is quite feasable to fit a CD player and ABS to one unit destined for the UK, then not fit those to the next because it's going to India and they just want it cheap. The production control facilities can cope with that.
Hugo
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>> It is also said that cars produced for the Japanese market >> lack the undersealing of cars destined for the UK.
But they still get wet underneath when it rains which it fequently does in Japan, and it still snows there too!
It's all a load of cobblers. All these Cars are treated and built the same IMO. The cost of treating some and not others would be astronomic. They're all built the same way... trust me.
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I wonder if the rust proofing/undersealing story started out from franchised dealers trying to put people off from imports? Or perhaps one make/model did it for a short while and everyone assumed all Japanese makes would be the same?
teabelly
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There are probably very few LARGE car markets where they do not get horrible weather so it makes total uneconomic sense to make or treat cars differently.
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On balance very re-assuring.
Especially the production line thinking and the lousy winter weather argument.
Have you ever dealt with the snow and ice in Spain ?!!
But they don't use salt --they leave you to your own devices.
Many thanks.
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Cars built for the Japanese market ONLY are generally not undersealed. This is why when you import a Japanese Domestic Market car, you must get it undersealed when it arrives in the country. A good example of this is the early Mitsubishi FTO. Never intended for sale in the UK, thus never undersealed.
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Why don't the Japanese underseal their cars? (If they don't - conflict with several posts above)
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Hyundai for the 52 cars and onwards finally sarted to plastic coat/seal their under bonnet componenets.
i have a y plate model - 01 - which has mass rust to everything possible under the bonnet and has some severe bubbling around the rear wheel arches.
you get what you pay for - and paintwork isnt taken serious by the koreans.
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I thought that technology was fairly standard Europe wide these days: entire car 'body-in-white' being firstly fully submerged in an electrodeposition paint tank (hence all box sections coated also on the inside, and no thinness of paint coating at sharp edges when withdrawn from the dip tank); this to be followed by a thicker, tough (i.e. not brittle) anti-chip primer to sill and other areas which are subject to stone strikes; still thicker resilient underbody coating to repel stone strikes and give sound deadening.
All this in combination with judicious use of zinc treated or galvanised steel was supposedly the reason why car makers were able to drastically improve their corrosion guarantees.
Oz (as was)
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Presumably they don't rust so much due to no salt on the roads?
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Espada III - well if you have a family and need a Lamborghini, what else do you drive?
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"Why don't the Japanese underseal their cars?"
With their very tough MOT type tests I doubt many Japanese cars are on their roads long enough to rust....
madf
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