Presumably this car is new to you. or you'd have been giving the underside a good and thorough clean every spring to get all the accumulated salt out...only pulling your leg cos there's barely a handful of us that still do this....interesting conversation with my Romanian mate who reckons we are still very rich seeing how people here buy new cars and can afford to neglect them and throw them away in 3 or 4 years, he has a point.

So, new regime for you, annual underbody clean off, and keep the underbody rinsed off whenever you wash the car during the winter. Then full inspection to see for yourself what is and isn't corroded and if the car is worth the work, if it's that bad it may not be worth the following.

Thorough wire brushing of all rust, light sandpapering of any corroded brake pipes to check are they good enough to save, then thorough waxoyling of the underside, there are some professional companies that will do this for you, but it's not cheap. DIY is very cheap but is the most filthy job you could ever imagine.

Edit....brake pipes either coat in heavy waxoyl or grease, avoiding flexibles if grease.

Edited by gordonbennet on 08/05/2011 at 21:58