Buddy just built a house and installed a lift in his garage. Very nice perk to have I'll tell you. Took the opportunity to do an oil change, trans drain+fill, my differentials and give the underside an overall inspection.

This is 122K mile, Northeast driven car that is purposely driven in salt/slush/snow. I expected much worse, but it appears only the exhaust is really taking the brunt of the rust







I still need to fix this. It does give the exhaust a nice purr, but it's too loud and drones inside the cabin with the windows up. Given my 1+ hr highway commutes...it's annoying!



Overall, quite impressed with the lack of major rust. I've been under plenty of northeast driven cars with 100K and it's a rust factory. The factory undercoating and use of aluminum really helps. Even the bolts/studs are still in great shape and I'm sure i could easily take apart the suspension even know.

Just the exhaust rots away. I had to hose clamp my heatshields as the welds are all busted. I put clamps on the two cats by the O2 sensors as well as the heatshield on the Y-pipe. Still gotta fix that muffler flange...

 

It seems every darn Nissan rusts out at that same exact flange. My '03 Maxima did it, my '00 G20t did it, our '08 Armada just did it, and my '06 coupe probably would've done it if I didn't already go aftermarket. One of the bolts actually snapped off when I was removing the stock exhaust.

 

I think it's pretty common. I was behind an 03/04 sedan the other day and could see a fresh welding repair done to this flange.

I think i'm just going to have a shop weld in a coupling....one of these days. Hopefully before it snaps off

 

Mine is welded there too.

 

Here on the Texas Coast we have a nifty little car wash that was put on the road in and out of the beach. It's just a water spray and it washes all the sand and salt water off your car for a dollar. (was a quarter back in 1966) Why don't they have places like that for you poor bastards that must drive in that crap?

 

Prob wouldn't be effective because of the sheer amount of salt they use. There are days the road is powder white along with my tires. You just drive along and white salt is kicked up under your car. Not much you can do other than hose it off when you can

 

Nice lift, can you unload the suspension on it?

 

It's a drive on lift, but it has two jacking posts that fit the gap in the middle the will support the weight of the car if I want to put the front or rear on jack stands to do brakes and such. It's a little bit of a PITA for serious work needing a lift, but for your basic service like what I did....it's awesome. I didn't get dirty at all and was nice to do the work standing straight up with plenty of light.


Either way....I can't knock it at all.

 

Cool,, what part of MA are you in?

 

Here's mine.

Originally NY car, driven in Winnipeg since Oct. 2010.
Now has 110K miles on it. Y pipe replaced when i got it.
Heatshield removed due to rusting and causing and annoying sound.













Flange near muffler seems fine to me. The area above Y pipe has some rusting though.

 

That looks like mine, never been on a salty road or at the beach. Your rust is very well under control.

 

Wow! That is now a sexy garage! Would be awesome to get a lift in my garage

 

I live just outside of Boston (can see it from my balcony) but work in Northern MA. 30 mile commute every day.

 

It really is. He hasn't set up the tool boxes and work benches yet, but since the lift was put in a week ago we decided to use it. Garage is 3 bays, with a raised ceiling over the lift bay. So it will pick an SUV up with the hood up and still clear and allow a 4th car to be parked underneath. Floor is special oil resistant paint as well, so cleanup is a breeze.

 

Mines a montreal car driven in the peg since 2011.
Yours is a little cleaner I must say!

Maybe ill see ya driving around.