2005 Caravan - Rust - Spring Shackles

That's just surface rust. I wouldn't worry about it myself. If it really worries you you can remove them, clean them up with a wire wheel and have them powdercoated or painted. What I see is typical of any vehicle, not just a Chrysler. I know that might not be what you're hoping to hear but don hope it helps.

Happy New Year to you too!

Tom

This is normal and nothing to worry about. Look under a few vehicles next time you visit a car dealer. You will see this on almost any car that is more than a month old.

Matt

I spray parts that may need to come apart later in the car's life with 3M's anti-rust spray. It works. You can pick up a can at any body part supply store.

Richard.

That is surface rust right now, but it is quite a lot of rust for only 2 months. You would never see this in the Pacific Northwest. You probably live in a rust belt state where they salt the roads. These parts should have been painted, in my opinion. Quite obviously the springs that are connected to them were, it is just probably some kind of cost-saving issue.

As far as the warranty goes I don't think you have a chance, because with the thickness of the steel, by the time these rust to the point that they are structurally weak, the car will be out of warranty - although likely you will still be driving it.

The thing is this. To design a car to be impervious to salt water is going to really increase it's cost. Why should I and all the people who live in California, Arizona, the SouthWest, the South, and so on, have to pay extra money so that the people who live in states where they salt the hell out of the roads don't have their cars rust out in 15 years? If you don't like it complain to your municipality.

People that live in states that salt the roads 6 months out of the year, and who buy new cars that they want to last, in my personal opinion, need to spend the extra money to get good rustproofing added in addition to what the manufacturer puts on. To be done right, this is yearly cost that is just one of the extra maintainence costs that need to be done on vehicles in these states. (since the treatment needs to be redone every year) You need to take responsibility to do this, or to move to a different state without so much snow. Several good rustproofing treatments as well as a lot of bad ones that worsen the problem have been discussed here over the years, use the Google archives to dig them out and read them.

Ted

Paint wouldn't last one winter in PA. Powder coating won't last three. I have a receiver hitch that came powder coated and was rusting in less than three years. Now, after nearly 10 years, it has a pretty much uniform coating of rust. It'll still outlast the truck so why worry?

Actually, the car will probably have lots of other problems by the time this rusts enough to be a structural problem. Engineers factor in the rust of such parts during the design. They typically design parts with substantial excess strength partly for this sort of deteriorization.

Matt

Well, notwithstanding the "iz", ;)....with slower vehicle sales there has been an awful lot of "field" storage of excess inventory around the Windsor DC plant in recent weeks.

That usually leads to earlier onset of rusting of unprotected chassis parts.

An increase in disc brake roughness complaints usually follows, too, as rotors pick up more than a little rust and the pads "print" their outline.

Yes, I thought that didn't look right when I typed it... :-)

Yes, that is the biggest problem I have with my brakes living in PA and driving in both PA and NY, the latter uses even more road salt than PA! My rotors rust and pit and then the pads wear out very quickly. I used to try to not use my brakes too much to save wear on them, but then a mechanic told me my pads and rotors would last longer if I used them more!

Matt

I'm not sure it's all salt related. Newer rotors always seemed to be the most affected by pad printing even when the corrosion was caused only by a few weeks in an inventory bank (read farm field). ...a fresher, more active machined surface, maybe?

Frequent, but gentle, brake application does seem to be the key.

I'm not sure it's all salt related. Newer rotors always seemed to be the

From what I've read on Brake discussion groups, etc., is that it is not warping of the rotors, etc that is the problem, but not properly breaking in the new pads.

It is noted by brake experts that pad material must be evenly distributed on the rotor. If the pad material is not evenly distributed it may feel like a warped rotor. One does this by taking several good stops from speed, but being very careful not to leave the pads in contact with the rotors until the rotors cool down a bit. This means you should leave your foot off the pedal for a while the rotors cool down a bit.

You can try redistributing the pad material by trying this on a vehicle with what may seem to be rotor warp and see if it helps. I have followed this procedure for a few pad and rotor changes now and it does seem to work with now pads and rotors.

Richard.

That's fine, but it's unrelated to the first order roughness caused by rusty rotors and pad "printing".

That's fine, but it's unrelated to the first order roughness caused by rusty rotors and pad "printing".

How sure are you that they are unrelated. I live in snow country and I do not suffer from rusty rotors and pad printing. Perhaps because enough pad material has been properly distributed onto and into the rotors.

Richard.

I'm quite sure and you make my point. Pad printing (my expression) is associated with corroded rotors on new vehicles that haven't been shipped to the dealer yet. It's common with sales bank vehicles that have been stored paticularly in less than ideal locations, such as a wet farm field. The OP was concerned about what he considered to be excessive rust on unprotected chassis components on a vehicle of which he had taken delivery only two months previously.

You're driving your car and keeping the rotors wiped reasonably free of corrosion.