Originally Posted by xviper

I have very little unusual rust forming on the car. I say unusual because the axle hubs, frame rails, suspension arms, etc all get a surface rust on them as a normal course of events. Take a look at any S2000 that doesn't see salt and you'll see this rust. I call that "normal" rust and this kind is not of any detriment to the car. A one year old car will get these parts rusted just from car washes and driving in the rain.
The only places I get rust is where I've drilled holes in the body to mount stuff and I try to coat the holes with touch up paint before mounting the part. The other areas of rust are from rock chips around the wheel wells. Also, the early cars have this plastic trim on the rear wheel well. Dirt and crap get underneath this trim and it begins to rust where the plastic rear bumper cover meets the metal rear quarter panel. On later cars, Honda left that trim piece off and those cars never rusted there unless damaged. I removed those pieces, ground off the rust, primed and re-painted and the rust has not returned for 2 years now.
If you look under an S2000, you will see a black tar like coating right from the factory. They rustproof these things pretty good. Aftermarket rustproofing is not necessary and unless it's put on as soon as the car comes off the boat, there's no point anyway. When washing the car in winter, spray the underside of the car all around with the nozzle and this gets rid of much of any salt that find its way there. Fix rock chips as soon as possible. If driven in winter conditions, consider getting a 3M film covering all frontal areas. Wheels wells get the worst and there isn't much you can do about that except to touch up paint the bad chips when you can. Even left alone, these chips will begin to rust but doesn't seem to spread. I have a couple of small spots (1/2" long) on the fender edges that are rusted but they have not spread in nearly a decade. I don't know what's going on with the UK cars, but you would never know mine is 12 daily driven years old. It could be that those UK cars live constantly in close proximity to sea air. Sea salt can sometimes be more corrosive than the salt they spread on the roads around here.

Originally Posted by geppetto

Dave!! Holy crap, I thought I had lost you forever. Sorry for hijacking the thread, but dude a computer failure and a couple of new phones caused a loss of all your contact info. Can you send me a PM with your email and cell (if you are okay with that). I would love to touch base with you again! Hope all is well...

Originally Posted by xviper

I have very little unusual rust forming on the car. I say unusual because the axle hubs, frame rails, suspension arms, etc all get a surface rust on them as a normal course of events. Take a look at any S2000 that doesn't see salt and you'll see this rust. I call that "normal" rust and this kind is not of any detriment to the car. A one year old car will get these parts rusted just from car washes and driving in the rain.
The only places I get rust is where I've drilled holes in the body to mount stuff and I try to coat the holes with touch up paint before mounting the part. The other areas of rust are from rock chips around the wheel wells. Also, the early cars have this plastic trim on the rear wheel well. Dirt and crap get underneath this trim and it begins to rust where the plastic rear bumper cover meets the metal rear quarter panel. On later cars, Honda left that trim piece off and those cars never rusted there unless damaged. I removed those pieces, ground off the rust, primed and re-painted and the rust has not returned for 2 years now.
If you look under an S2000, you will see a black tar like coating right from the factory. They rustproof these things pretty good. Aftermarket rustproofing is not necessary and unless it's put on as soon as the car comes off the boat, there's no point anyway. When washing the car in winter, spray the underside of the car all around with the nozzle and this gets rid of much of any salt that find its way there. Fix rock chips as soon as possible. If driven in winter conditions, consider getting a 3M film covering all frontal areas. Wheels wells get the worst and there isn't much you can do about that except to touch up paint the bad chips when you can. Even left alone, these chips will begin to rust but doesn't seem to spread. I have a couple of small spots (1/2" long) on the fender edges that are rusted but they have not spread in nearly a decade. I don't know what's going on with the UK cars, but you would never know mine is 12 daily driven years old. It could be that those UK cars live constantly in close proximity to sea air. Sea salt can sometimes be more corrosive than the salt they spread on the roads around here.

Originally Posted by alSpeed2k

Good info! Honda actually left those plastic trim on all years of the S. My car had it and my friend's '08 CR has it as well.

Originally Posted by nick.g

Clearly the silver car with the black hard top had the best snow tires.

Originally Posted by xviper

That surprises me. There are a few later S2000s in our Starbucks group and they all have that piece missing. I guess the news got around and those pieces got pulled off early in the cars' life. Mine is an '00 and my buddy yanked his off when the car was fairly new and his car never developed any rust in that spot or anywhere else for that matter. He sold his car last year with nearly 200K kms on it. He daily drove his, including winters. We used to have parking lot drag races on early Sunday mornings in the snow and ice to see who had the better snow tires.
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