Been and got some new rear wheel arch liners from a breaker for my fabia, as mine had the little flaps which cover the backs of the sills broken off on both sides (not sure how)

Fitted the new ones today and was prepared for the rust around the rear wheel arches as Ive briefly looked at it before. Was quite surprised even when pressure washed how much rust there is behind those plastic liners!

I know the car has been driven around wales for most of its life which would explain why the whole front suspension components were so rusty when i bought the car.

Was wondering if anyone else had experienced similar amounts of rust on an otherwise excellent condition 11 year old Fabia.

I know the front wheel arches had a nice build up of compost behind the liners however there was no rust to be seen on any of the front.

( i went over all the rust with waxoyl to prevent it getting worse)

Edited 8 April, 20179 yr by clarendon462

They are getting old now. I noticed mine's starting to rust at the bottom of the front wings, even though I keep making sure all the gunk is cleared from behind the plastic liner. It's nowhere near as rusty as the same age Ford Escort I had before it though. Rear wheel arches evaporated on that

Edited 8 April, 20179 yr by TMB

Yes I suppose its to be expected on an older car.

Shame really as the rest of the car has held up so well bodywork is really tidy and mechanically its great

 

9 minutes ago, clarendon462 said:

Yes I suppose its to be expected on an older car.

Shame really as the rest of the car has held up so well bodywork is really tidy and mechanically its great

 

 

Only because you've been looking after it, my brother had an MPI last summer that was shedding out badly due to neglect, we straightened it out and he punted it on.

Well I've only owned it for 9 months the original owner was a welsh woman who did the bare minimum to get it through an MOT by the looks of things. Hadn't been serviced in 6 years according to the paperwork supplied with the car.

Luckily they're easy and cheap to fix up mechanically, but once the bodywork starts to go you've had it, I suspect trapped road salt has caused the problem on yours, winter in Wales can be very tough on cars.

That's quite a bit worse than mine was the last time I looked at it seriously.

Get a blanking plug to fill that hole into the sill up otherwise that will be rotting through from the inside.

To be fair the bottom of my rear wheel arches will need work this year.

 

 

I was very surprised to find it was this bad, the fronts had a large amount of compost behind the wheel arch liners but zero rust, so must be a rear only thing.

Sills are pretty good other than where the stonechips have taken away the paint and caused some bubbing.

Im not too concerned as i dont intend on keeping the car longer than a year so as long as it passes the MOT which is up in a month then I'm satisfied.

Been waxoyl'd and I regularly jetwash around the wheel arches so shouldn't get much worse.

 

 

The rears do hide a lot of future problems in my opinion. Where the body brackets are spot welded together is the weak point. Even though they are given a dusting of body colour, it's not enough to stop them corroding, look at my project thread for examples. Best thing to do is treat it now before you have to break the MIG welder out in years to come.

I did see your thread and saw the problems you had, so was expecting something similar.

 

Bloody 'ell!

 

I feel a summer project coming on with Waxoyl now.

 

Are these liners difficult to remove?

 

 

3 hours ago, Adenuf said:

Are these liners difficult to remove?

 

 

 

Dead easy. About ten T25 Torx screws on the rear ones. Only problem you might have is that the screw heads can sometimes be corroded.

 

If you need any screws they are part number N90775001

Edited 26 April, 20179 yr by TMB

You can normally get them out if you use enough force on the screwdriver but make sure you jetwash the arches first as its not fun having all the mud fall out and go in your eyes.

 

I've had similar problem, mine is a 06 plate, about 3 years ago I took off the plastic inners and the crud and soil buildup was loads I cleaned them out and had loads of rust spots on the welds so just cleaned back to bare metal and put curerust on them aloud to dry and just painted the inners with black hammerite, I recently have changed rear shocks and painted them all again very little rust not like 3 years ago, give them a clean up and do what I've done might last a couple of years longer in this area. Best of luck.