Originally Posted By: demarpaint
Originally Posted By: jcwit
OK, Your van is cherry and has no rust.
But a 27 year old van with not even 100,000 miles on it, that comes out to less than 3700 miles a year. So not much is seen on salty road at least compared to what most drivers here in the Midwest drive. Normal mileage here is a minimum of 12,000 miles a year, I normally drive 20 to 40 thousand miles a year. Being as salt is applied during the months of Nov., Dec., Jan., Feb., and March that comes out to over 8,000 miles a year in salt, more than twice as many miles as your van travels in a year.
Now do you wash/spray the underside of your van after each trip out on the road?
I do not nor can I.
BTW, My wife's Rio is also as clean as a whistle, except for the unseen location where the brake line rusted thru. At least as far as I can tell at this time.
I took very good care of it when it was new, as far as keeping it clean and waxed. In the last 10 years not so much, and the paint is starting to fade a bit. It would be caked with salt for weeks at a time and never was driven through a car wash. When I got around to it, and the planets were in alignment I cleaned it. In the spring I would set up a sprinkler under it to wash the chassis. My Jeep OTOH I stay on top of.
Granted the miles are low, and higher miles might have taken more of a toll, but it still had 27+ years for the elements to do their thing. Spray something with a road salt and water mix and let it sit, it will still rust. Rust doesn't need motion to spread.
Not to beat a dead horse, the product is only as good as the person applying it. The guy who did mine did a good job. I think that's what it boils down to. It could have been Ziebart, or Ziefart, Krown, or Krrap, the job is only as good as the tech applying the product. Some vehicles use better grade metals than others, that helps too.
It's like painting a car, you can use the best paint in the world and lousy prep and application techniques and produce a lousy job. When that happens typically the paint gets the blame because no one wants to fess up to doing lousy work.
Regardless from the overall reviews and feedbacks & what happened to me is I will never return to Ziebart, nor will I recommend it to anyone anywhere.
JMO
Praise God my wife wasn't applying the brakes while coming to a stop light or stop sign.
YMMV