New Yorkers with Rusty Cars? (Buffalo, Lancaster: how much, house, buy)

[jorywalker]

Hi,I am thinking of purchasing a car that was owned by a person from Lancaster NY outside of Buffalo. From the pictures it seems that the engine has some rust on some of the brackets etc., I live in Texas and we only dream of snow usually(today it was 75) so I do not know too much about the "rust factor" what does it do to your car? Does this rust cause engine problems? Do you New Yorkers have to trade in your cars every few years to avoid Rust?

[faithfulFrank]

the short answer is........yes.
the engine area usually is not too bad, it is all the rest of the undercarriage....brake lines, gas lines, strut mounts, etc,etc.

not too many people down south buy cars up here.....people up here envy the people down south and we brag about owning a "southern car".

Unless you can get pictures of the underbody, preferably when the car is up on a lift, I'd be leery. There is no easy, cheap way to get a car that distance....if it is from down there to up here, the condition is worth it...if the other way, I doubt it would be worth it at all.

I plan on moving to my other house in florida in 3 years...there is no way i'll be bringing any NY vehicle down there.

you are lucky to live in a place that has nice older cars.....we envy you.

Frank D.

[jorywalker]

Originally Posted by faithfulFrank

the short answer is........yes.
the engine area usually is not too bad, it is all the rest of the undercarriage....brake lines, gas lines, strut mounts, etc,etc.

not too many people down south buy cars up here.....people up here envy the people down south and we brag about owning a "southern car".

Unless you can get pictures of the underbody, preferably when the car is up on a lift, I'd be leery. There is no easy, cheap way to get a car that distance....if it is from down there to up here, the condition is worth it...if the other way, I doubt it would be worth it at all.

I plan on moving to my other house in florida in 3 years...there is no way i'll be bringing any NY vehicle down there.

you are lucky to live in a place that has nice older cars.....we envy you.

Frank D.

Thank you for the reply Frank, this car is priced several thousands below what it would sell here for and has only 21k miles so I was suprised to see rust until I started to think about all the salt on the roads there etc. I may need to rethink this idea! lol

Jory

[sent]

My 1998 Civic went through 6 winters in Buffalo and 2 in Indiana before I moved it to Nashville in 2006. My mechanic in Nashville cursed me the entire time he worked on my car while replacing the catalytic convertor because of all the rust on the underside. The car runs fine despite the entire underside being rusted, but while he was changing out the parts, he wasn't sure if he'd be able to get all the screws and bolts off properly without damaging the connections because some of them were rusted on there pretty badly. After working on my car, he said he was always going to ask his new customers from now on what state their car is from and charge appropriately because of the rust factor.

[CrissCT]

I live in SoCal but my car spent a few winters in NE Ohio before we moved here. This past summer I had to call AAA to give my battery a jump. The guy had the strangest look on his face when he looked under my hood and asked me "Where is this car from?" I didn't get it at first, but then laughed when I realized he was talking about the rust.

[bmd69]

Alot of the cars were built in the late 80's early 90's when metal protection was no existent from the manufacturers

[groove1]

I had a VW Fox in WNY that didn't have a floor because it was rusted. I had many parts like brake lines and gas lines rot. I've gone to to replace things on cars up there and there wouldn't be a bolt Because it was corroded.

[BuffaloTransplant]

Both of our kids got old Dodge/Chrysler products that we had put over 75K miles on each. Neither had ever been thru a wash in winter, unless you count rain. Neither car croaked until after 125K miles -- that one was sold ( the child bought a "new" used car) and the other made 130K miles. Our current 2 vehicles are in the 30-40K mile use and no rust on either as we garage them and also don't wash them. The only spot is a place hit by a shopping cart ( maybe 2" long by 1" tall -- all surface). The only wash we ever have is an auto store specialty auto wash which does not harm the finish -- none of these have ever gone thru a carwash. Labor intensive? Yep. Worth it? Even more so!

[bmd69]

Originally Posted by groove1

I had a VW Fox in WNY that didn't have a floor because it was rusted. I had many parts like brake lines and gas lines rot. I've gone to to replace things on cars up there and there wouldn't be a bolt Because it was corroded.

No General Motors car.

[xnyer]

Don't waste your money on a used car from WNY. The road salt and potholes just destroy the automobile, as well as the soaked carpets from the snow of endless winters will rot your floors from the inside out. It always amazed me why people up there would invest good money in an auto only to see it turn into a pile of scrap before it is paid off. There are less corrosive materials to handle ice than straight salt, but typically WNY, they do everything the cheapest way possible. Take a look at the bridges around wny if you think I'm kidding, I remember the Skyway when you could see through the potholes to the rebar and that was rusted to near powder. How much worse the seen and unseen damage to an automobile. Come to think of it, I have seen wny cars in such bad shape that the carpeting went through holes in the floor and came into contact with the catalytic convertor and set the car on fire. I think if an owner has salt induced rust through of his car before the manufacturers warranty expires due to the crap salt used in wny, then the owner should be compensated by the gov't. agency responsible.