How to Clean Your Car to Prevent Rust

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All right, here we have a great example. This is a 2009 Chevy Suburban. You'll find this on Suburbans, Tahoes, even some Silverados, Sierras, both Chevy and GMC. You can even find it on the Cadillac Escalade.

Up here, this is actually not a big deal. This vehicle's got 140,000+ miles on it, and some portion of that has been on gravel roads obviously. Basically, some of the paint's been worn away, sandblasted over time. But this is still solid. It's not rust through. It's just some surface rust. This can easily be sanded down, use some filler, and touch it up, and you'll be no problem.

On the back though, this is a great example of vehicle where just a little bit of simple maintenance could have prevented this. Again, 140,000 miles. It's about eight years old and it's already rusted through here in the dog leg behind the rear door. So our spot of rust is here, but it's in the back of the rocker panel. So this is the inside, looking from underneath the car. And the rocker panel goes the whole length. And actually if you look, you can see there are relief holes here that are intended to drain out. And what I see as I come back is this. The front ones are very clean. As I get back towards the back ones, they actually start getting a little dirtier and more clogged up.

Then another important aspect is that there is a clean-out plug right here that can be removed. You can usually do it with a small screwdriver, or even your fingernails. We'll get a screwdriver. But the biggest problem is back in here, right behind the rocker panel, there is just a ton of dirt built up. What that has done is I'm pretty sure that there's a relief on the back of the rocker panel here, that it's clogged up. So you want to make sure that this is always cleaned out. So to prevent this from happening, what I suggest is once a year, probably in the spring after they've cleaned the salt off the roads, you're going to remove this little plug just by prying out on the middle, and then you can pry the plug out itself as well. And then, use a seven millimeter socket and a ratchet, or a seven millimeter wrench. We have our vehicle on a lift just so it's easy, but you can do this easily on the ground. Remove these two seven millimeter bolts. And then, with the flat blade screwdriver, go underneath and find that plug and pry it out.

Pull your inner fender back. Use your screwdriver. Get all the dirt and everything out if there's a lot of it. Old clothes, don't be afraid to get wet. Take a hose and just a little spray. You can see all that mud come out. I just spray until I get nice, clean water. Now, take your hose, put it in this hole, and here again, don't be afraid to get wet. You basically just want to spray here. And you can see the junk coming out of there. You want to spray here until you get nice, clean water flowing. It's going to come out the other relief holes as well. Spray in here. Don't be afraid to spray up and around either. I always just spray until my water starts flowing clean.

We're working on a Suburban here, but you can do this really for any car. And then like I said, get up into that hole. Just stick the nozzle in there as best you can. And you can see just all the dirt and stuff washing out of there. I just keep trying to move the hose around, different angles. And then you can also feel up through, find those other reliefs, and spray water. And again, just be careful. You'll probably end up spraying yourself in the face a couple times. And we'll do the whole process on this side. Get a lot of sand trapped in these plugs. Then, feel underneath for that plug before you start spraying water. Might be easiest you just look underneath. This side's a little more difficult because there's some lines in front of the plug. But pry that off. And then, one thing to keep in mind is after you've sprayed in there, keep this plug out for a few days, make sure you're driving the car on some dry days so it'll dry out in there. And then, put the plug back in.

If you do have rust like this, and you at least spray this out and then let it dry, you'll stop the rust from spreading very quickly. If there's no dirt and junk in behind here to hold stuff in place, then it won't rust as fast. And doing this type of clean out each year from the time that your car is new, I can't say that your car won't rust ever, but it'll certainly prolong the life of your vehicle. So you can see on these 2007 to 13s or 14s, the key is make sure that this area back here is all cleared out so debris and water can flow out of there and doesn't get stuck up in here, which is what causes the rust. And it also doesn't hurt while you're doing all this, just take a hose and spray out all over the place and just clean the underside of your car. Once you're satisfied with the cleanliness, just reattach your inner fenders. As long as that middle pin is out, the clip should go in, push it in the lock, tighten up the bolts.

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