Undercarriage (exhaust piping) rust, normal?

[gonzalj1]

I've always heard that New England winters can be hard on cars, but this hard? I figure I better ask... Is this normal? http://imgur.com/1UjLHG3

I bought the car new September of last year and only have 3400 miles. Could I talk to the dealer about it if it's not normal? Any input would be greatly appreciated!

[kbye]

Judging from all that road salt in that pic I assume your roads are heavily salted, so yea it looks normal to me. It's just spots of surface rust, nothing to worry about. My winter beater's exhaust looks like that too. You could bring it in to your dealer but I don't think they'd do much about it.

[Drobinson1692]

I'd be surprised if it didn't look like that TBH. The only way the dealership will do anything about it is if it rusts through and causes an exhaust leak.

One way to combat this would be to sand off all surface rush the have it coated.

[DaveyG]

Mine's really bad too. I've driven a lot of different cars in Buffalo and have never seen something this bad just after 1 winter. My rsx exhaust looked better after 7 years.

[gonzalj1]

Originally Posted by DaveyG

Mine's really bad too. I've driven a lot of different cars in Buffalo and have never seen something this bad just after 1 winter. My rsx exhaust looked better after 7 years.

That's the thing, after I saw how bad mine looked, I got up, looked around to make sure that no one was watching, and kinda checked out every other car in the parking lot. Most cars, though way older, did not look nearly as rusted. On the other hand, a coworker also has a '13 BRZ and it looks about the same, even though he's lucky enough to garage his every night.

Part of me wants to go to the dealer just to see what they say.

[OrbitalEllipses]

It's probably cast iron or some other ferrous compound. It will rust. Get a stainless exhaust - it will rust less with the added benefit of sounding "cool" you know?

[ctstandley]

Did you ever check with the dealer? I'm in the process of selling my '13 and was checking the undercarriage, that's literally the only place rusted and it looks awful. I'm at 36,000 so it's definitely worse than your image

[Tcoat]

Come on guys. Exhausts rust.
They get hot that causes rust.
They get salty that causes rust.
They get wet that causes rust.
They get all three at the same time that really causes rust.
Comparing to other cars doesn't mean a thing since they could have exhausts made of a whole different material.
I have had cars where the exhaust has rotted right through in 5 years and ones where it was 20 years old and still looked like new.
Like was said if it really bothers you then buy stainless.

[Jfheisenberg]

Looks normal to me, my stock exhaust looked like that after it was removed with only 6k miles.

[ctstandley]

Thanks, that's what I really wanted to know. It makes sense for it to rust, just wanted to see if others were seeing it quickly or not so it can't be misconstrued as an "issue".

[gouldilocks]

I have the same thing on my 2013 brz , looks about the same spots too, I thought it was really odd as well to be rusting so fast. But Chicago winter/road salts destroys most things.

oh well it gives me another reason to go stainless/aftermarket.

[RandomDeception]

Out of curiosity, would the TRD exhaust also rust?

[Tcoat]

Originally Posted by RandomDeception

Out of curiosity, would the TRD exhaust also rust?

After 50K miles and a salty Canadian winter my TRD exhaust pipes still look brand new.
Except for the welds and bolts that are as rusty as hell. I figure in 10 years or so I (well not me but somebody) will have a beautiful looking pipe hanging from a rotted through weld.

[kberkel]

I took my stock catback off at 12k miles.. it didn't look bad.. but the bolts for the axleback-to-midpipe were rusted so bad. I tried everything, air tools, breaker bar.. so I ended up grinding them off

Just snapped a pic:



Your flange still looks great.

Get a stainless exhaust - it will rust less

So true.