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With the exception of cars with stainless steel or fibreglass bodies, ALL cars can and will eventually rust, even modern ones. All it takes to start the process is a scratch in the cars paintwork or undercoating to reveal the bare steel underneath and once that starts to get wet or exposed to moisture it will begin to rust. So why does steel rust? Rust happens to any metal substance that contains iron. When the bare steel gets wet, the electrons in the iron are slowly washed away. Over a period of time and once enough electrons have been washed away from the irons outer shell, the steels chemical properties begin to break down making the metal change colour, but most of all, make it structurally weaker due to fact that there is less iron in the steel. Of course this process takes years to happen, but once its started, if its left or ignored it will only continue to get worse and you can be left with a costly repair when your car fails its MOT or becomes too dangerous to continue using on the road.

So how can you fix a rusty car? There is only 1 correct way to repair a rusty car. Cut out the rust from the affected area right back until you find clean steel. Metal that has been protected properly over the years will not rust and when performing a rust repair this is the steel you need to find. Once the rust has been removed and the clean steel found, then a repair panel can be welded back into place of the original rusted out panel. If this is done correctly the car will be as structurally solid as the day it was made and the repair wont even be noticeable.

The reason the rust needs to be cut out is because rust is like cancer for steel, once it starts it doesn't stop until its completely eaten away at the rest of the steel, even if the rest of the steel is still protected by paint, once a car starts to rust in a certain place, it will spread underneath the vehicles paint, until its bad enough that the paint comes loose from the steel, revealing the horrors underneath.

At Back to Life Cars we take great pride in repairing rusty cars and returning them to there former glory so that they can be used once again. The only problem with repairing a rusty car is trying to establish how much rust there is and how long its going to take to repair, its only once you have taken the car apart and started to cut the rust out that you can see the extent of the damage and its this reason which makes pricing up a rust repair very hard as most of the time, the damage is always worse than originally conceived. If you have a car that needs some rust repair work, panel replacement or a full restoration then please contact us to discuss your car in detail.