Rust above rear wheel due to bad trim

[PILOTHEAD]

My pilot has gotten rusty because of the trim failing as mentioned in this link:

Rear Rubber Wheel Well Edge Trim / Moulding Protector Concern

It only happened on the drivers side. It was starting to bubble up and spread so I cut the trim off completly, dremeled off the rust and put some touch up paint on it to hopefully slow the damage during the salt bath winters here in Michigan. Thinking Fender Flares might be needed in the future! I know this is a hack job but hopefully it stops the rust from spreading.

Pictures are here:

Pictures by GoldieF - Photobucket

[rocky]

Salt belt pilots will suffer. You don't say what year your Pilot is but suggest you also look under the truck behind the rear wheels. Every brand of car in the salt belt (rust belt?) suffer badly there due to all the crud spraying up from the wheels

[krazykarguy]

I pulled that garbage off of my other car, and it will be coming off the Pilot this weekend. I don't know why manufacturers even put it on.

[PILOTHEAD]

Originally Posted by rocky

Salt belt pilots will suffer. You don't say what year your Pilot is but suggest you also look under the truck behind the rear wheels. Every brand of car in the salt belt (rust belt?) suffer badly there due to all the crud spraying up from the wheels

Rocky- I am in Michigan and say this in my OP. I know about common rust spots as I have lived the Midwest my whole life, thanks for commenting and the "Every brand of car" advice. The spot I mention is uncommon and specific to Honda/Pilot design.

Also, with annual waxing and routine car washes after heavy snow clearing activity during the snow season rust in this area can be avoided

Also, when did they start allowing spam signatures here that have nothing to do with Honda Pilots?

[carguy07]

Just did this on my MDX. Those rubber strips are garbage! I caught it before it made it onto the vertical part of the panel, but what a mess. Ended up taking the inner fender wells out and the bumper loose to get at all the rust.

I used this stuff to try to convert it, then primed and painted the visible surfaces and used undercoating inside the wheel wells. Fender flares look like a great "fix" if it comes back again.

[PILOTHEAD]

Originally Posted by carguy07

Just did this on my MDX. Those rubber strips are garbage! I caught it before it made it onto the vertical part of the panel, but what a mess. Ended up taking the inner fender wells out and the bumper loose to get at all the rust.

I used this stuff to try to convert it, then primed and painted the visible surfaces and used undercoating inside the wheel wells. Fender flares look like a great "fix" if it comes back again.

Sounds like you did it right compared to my hack job...I should redo the underneath better but now my shade tree has a few inches of snow under it. I was going to try a product called cold galvanize that claims you can just spray on top of rust and it stops it from going further but i don't know if that is true or not. COLD GALVANIZE Corrosion Inhibitor, Rust Inhibitor: LPS Labs

Also, these strips seems like they would prevent rust if they did not separate and become a water trap like what happened on my pilot. The passenger side did not separate and is rust free.

[carguy07]

My pasenger's side looked like it was fine too, untill I pulled the strip off and saw what was underneath it.

[rawkstar]

Had the same problem on mine. Dremeled out all the nasty stuff and primed / rattle canned it. Turned out just OK. The rust is gone most importantly. The passenger side looked ok but I suspect I'll be doing some work on it soon.

[PILOTHEAD]

I wish there was more i could about the large opening that is now in the horizontal portion, but dont want to fill it and create another moisture trap, maybe bondo?

[leonk]

Thanks for the warning folks. Ripped that crap off my new 2008 pilot SE today. Passenger side rubber looked clean, driver side has some rusty color at some spots! So I think I got it in time, as I will begin yearly rust proofing the car in the spring. I remember that neither my 2001 accord nor 1998 civic had any rubber/plastic gasket on that part, and they never rusted in that spot; they were even closer to the ground! Just dumb design. Keeps the salty water from dripping away.

[PILOTHEAD]

Is there a trend showing here?...Drivers side is always worse than P side?

[AlphaOne]

Originally Posted by PILOTHEAD

Is there a trend showing here?...Drivers side is always worse than P side?

There's more salt in the middle of the road?

[leonk]

Not sure. I was doing some research on this issue, and it seems it doesn't effect only the pilot. This was a problem with Civics/Accords in the mid-90's ... but Honda got rid of it. S2000's also have this problem. The best suggestion I heard was to remove this thing, clean the lip, and use that rubber rust-proof spray onto the top of the lip. The lip is there because it joins 2 metal sheets together. Honda's solution was that cheap rubber trim, that hasn't worked for over a decade.

[PILOTHEAD]

I had not thought about salt proximity as the rubber thing was clearly deformed on the drivers side only and that side had the severe rust.

The lip is totally gone on the drivers side, where do you get this rubber rust-proof spray?

The rubber trim was not that cheap... it has a metal backbone, Honda Engineering should have caught this if they saw it 8 years before Pilots debut.

[carguy07]

Originally Posted by PILOTHEAD

Is there a trend showing here?...Drivers side is always worse than P side?

Mine was more visible and stained the bumper more on the driver's side, but I found the passenger's side was actually rusting even more when I pulled the rubber off and the wheel well liners out. It was a big job to try to clean them up.

Like leonk suggested, I think the best thing to do is pull those stupid rubber pieces off and confirm that everything is good under there, if so get rubber undercoating on the lip and keep an eye on it. I actually sprayed the under coating into a cup and brushed it on with a small flat brush I picked up at a hobby store. That way I did not have to worry about masking and over spray.