Slight rusting... What would you do?

Hi everyone,
I purchased a 64 plate (my14) outlander PHEV as my first PHEV car. I previously had a 2008 diesel outlander (before I wrote it off last month) so with the exception of the Electric drive, the handling, size etc. Is all very familiar.

I have noticed some rusting up the edge of the driver door, it appears that the previous owner may have opened it into something and chipped the paint. What solution do you think will be best, professional smart repair, touch up pen? I've emailed the dealer as If I'd noticed this, I would have made them fix it.. Otherwise the car is awesome 92% battery health @ 22500 miles (around 36000 km)

Steeeeve said:

Hi everyone,
I purchased a 64 plate (my14) outlander PHEV as my first PHEV car. I previously had a 2008 diesel outlander (before I wrote it off last month) so with the exception of the Electric drive, the handling, size etc. Is all very familiar.

I have noticed some rusting up the edge of the driver door, it appears that the previous owner may have opened it into something and chipped the paint. What solution do you think will be best, professional smart repair, touch up pen? I've emailed the dealer as If I'd noticed this, I would have made them fix it.. Otherwise the car is awesome 92% battery health @ 22500 miles (around 36000 km)

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Hi, and congrats on your new purchase! Your PHEV is well kept and low on mileage as it sounds. As for the fixing of the scratch, it depends on the size and whether it is deep, or only superficial to the paintwork. If the latter, it depends on if the paint is completely stripped, or only partially. If completely I would mask around the scratch and apply touch up paint color coded to your car. Afterwards the clear coat can be applied, but maybe you can also top it up with "magic pen" - which is some kind of clear coat itself and tends to join the old and new surfaces. If you did everything well, it will look like no scratch, but only a streak of a clear coat that appear to have some sidewalls - now you can polish them out with some medium to fine cut polishing kit.

After writing all this I realized, your scratch is already rusted up. In this case, I'd mask it around and sand the rust off with sandpaper (moving in the direction of the scratch). Afterwards apply the touch up paint procedure. However it the damage is too big for the DIY approach, the only option left is getting the part resprayed by a professional. He would then probably apply color paint only on and around the scratch (by using some smudge effect around the edges), and then respray the whole body part with the clear coat finish.)

Thanks for the feedback, in places it was unfortunately down to metal, because the car is white the rust stands out like crazy, I think I'll give it a go as worst case scenario, I then just pay for the smart repair.

otherwise the car is in awesome condition, I never thought I'd buy a white one.. But love at first sight!! Just wish I'd noticed the rust!!

No worries, if it hadn't happened before you purchased the car... it will come about at some stage, no doubt.
I myself just fixed a small scuff on the charger lid, caused previously by not closing it before driving out of the garage - the garage post scratched the edge of the lid. Today, only the polishing work left, I drove out of the garage to get the work finished on the sunlight. Guess what?? I managed to drive out yet again with opened lid! :twisted: This time the scuffs were even worse than previously. Another 2 hours and it looks like I managed to make the damages disappear... :roll: but yet to be confimed in direct sunlight.

Thats the kind of thing I would do , i scraped my old mondeo's back wing on gate post, paid for it to be repaired and did it again 2 weeks later!

I'll give it a go when its not raining / snowing / both unless i get a quote that is cheap enough.. or the dealer agrees to fix it (Miracles can happen!)

Steeeeve said:

Thats the kind of thing I would do , i scraped my old mondeo's back wing on gate post, paid for it to be repaired and did it again 2 weeks later!

I'll give it a go when its not raining / snowing / both unless i get a quote that is cheap enough.. or the dealer agrees to fix it (Miracles can happen!)

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Ah yes, what can we do, when Murphy lives strong with us

Anyhow, good luck with it - if you happen to remain with the DIY option let me know and I'll try to give some detailed hints regarding those steps.