Small Rust Spots on White Car. How to Get Rid of Them?

Rust is not a big friend of your car. Rust will destroy a certain metal part or even some parts very quickly. To save your vehicle from rust, you need to know why it appeared and what can help you deal with it for a long time, not just hide it and let it destroy your car. White vehicles suffer from rust spots the most because you can easily see the rust on a white panel of your car.

Small rust spots cannot be a normal thing for any car that is younger than 7 years. They should have some background and they need proper care. If you think that they will not change for years, you should look at totally rusty cars out there on the streets. Yes, a year ago they also had just small rust spots, but now they look very awful.

So, here's what we'll be talking today about:

1. What can cause small rust spots on your white car?
2. How to deal with the rust spots and hide them professionally?
3. How long will rust spots be growing into holes?
4. Why painting over rust spots is a bad idea?

Let's get started!

Small rust spots on a white car - why have they appeared?

The color of your car doesn't change the reasons for appearing some rust spots. But white vehicles are only beautiful when the paint is smooth and clean. Once you see a dark spot on one of the panels, you will immediately notice the defect. That's why paying attention to the condition of the white car body is extremely important.

The owners of white cars will notice the problems with rust very quickly. And then they will probably try to figure out why the rust appeared on their vehicle. It may seem an easy question, but it actually depends on many factors.

Here are some of the most common reasons for the rust spots:

1. The vehicle is old. Over time, the protection layer of the paint is destroyed and some small dents and scratches inevitably form. Once they get directly to the metal, some rust appears. The speed of rust creation depends on the kind of metal the manufacturer used for your vehicle.
2. Bad paint job. If you have already repainted your car for any reason, the chances for small rust spots become much higher. It means that in a year or two after painting you will see that some small rust spots appear. The worse the quality of work, the sooner you'll see the spots.
3. Accidents. Vehicles that have already been in accidents with body damage, tend to rust really fast. That's why buying salvage cars or even rebuilt cars is a bad idea - you will anyway have some rust on the body pretty soon and it will be really hard to deal with it because of massive damages.
4. Just some deep dents and scratches that cause rust spots over time. This is a normal thing for any car over 7 years old.
5. Poor quality of the vehicle. The cheaper the car, the less attention its manufacturer pays to quality. Bad metal protection and cheap materials may lead to problems with the body and with the paint job. And this is one of the reasons the USA doesn't have many Chinese brands or vehicles from many other Asian countries that are known to be of poor quality.

As you see, some reasons for rust spots depend on you (like accidents and the quality of body works) but some depend on the manufacturer or just on some reasons you can't change. Depending on the reason for appearing of the rust spots, you will need to make the right decision for dealing with these spots, so it's important to understand the reason.

Unfortunately, dealing with the body problems of your car will not be cheap. American car paint shops take a lot of money for labor and materials and for some cars such a repair can be just insanely expensive. You should always count up the budgets and decide whether it makes sense to invest that much in your vehicle.

How to deal with the rust spots on a white car?

Dealing with this problem is not that easy. Unfortunately, we don't know any ways to deal with the rust spots problem without going to a car paint shop. An experienced specialist will tell you some ways you can choose after investigating the car body and looking at the quality of paint and protection layers. This is the only chance to make your car beautiful again.

If you decide to paint the vehicle with spray paint, you can just spoil everything. We've read a lot of tips on how to get rid of rust spots in your own garage, and all of them are insane. You may try one of them in that case only if you don't care at all how your car looks.

Here's how rust spots are cured:

1. A specialist will look under extra light on the paint and will say why the problem occurred.
2. After that, the car paint specialist will offer a couple of ways to deal with the situation - from a cheaper one to the most expensive one.
3. A lot of car owners will choose to repaint the part of the body with rust spots. It's the middle-budget decision that is good enough for 2-3 years.
4. Some people will choose to only paint the rust spots which is a bad decision because you will still see white spots after such repairs and the car paint will not be beautiful anymore. But it's still better than rust spots.
5. Some car owners will decide to repaint their vehicles. It's the most expensive option but it will also renew the rust protection of your vehicle which is important.

The last option is not only the most expensive but also the most durable one. It depends on the chosen car paint shop and on the quality of work, but the repainted vehicle can show no body problems for the next 5 years, on average.

We still know some cases when the paint job was poor and in 1 year the problems came back. So, we can't recommend a certain way. We can only say that repainting a single part of the car body will cost you $300 to $600, while the total repainting will cost $1500 for bad work and up to $4500 and even more depending on the size and the type of the vehicle.

How much time do you have to decide?

Rust is developing pretty fast, but the actual critical time period depends on the metal type. For example, some manufacturers offer special metal protection by zinc. Volkswagen and Audi cars often have this protection. It means that the rust spot will remain the same size for years. But once it will start growing rapidly when the protection is not good anymore.

In most cars, there is no good protection but the primer with some anti-rust qualities. Once the paint is scratched, this protection is lost and the metal is destroyed by rust. The question is how much time do you have after you see those rust spots? We would say from 1 month to 6 months depending on how thin or thick the metal part is. Thinner metal parts will quickly turn a rust spot into a rust hole with much more expensive repair solutions.

Rust on the doors or on the hood will not develop so quickly. But usually, you see those rust spots on thresholds and also on wheel arches. These spots are prone to rust because they are attacked by road debris, stones, and also by water all the time.

The bare metal part that is covered by water and then comes in contact with oxygen will rust immediately. You will see day by day how these rust spots get bigger and just eat your car. In this case, some actions should be taken immediately.

Can you paint over rust?

This question is always asked by people who are going to sell their vehicle soon and just want to take a spray can with white paint and "repair" their cars. You will get a lot of problems after such a repair.

Here are some of them:

• the rust spots will hide for a couple of days and then they will reappear;
• the rust will continue growing even faster;
• the paint will chip off, sometimes even immediately after curing;
• the rust will come deeper into the metal and will form a hole much faster;
• your paint will likely be of a different shade and it will be obvious.

Now you know that repairing rusting metal parts by yourself is a bad idea. If you want to get rid of your car, just make a discount for rust spots on a white body. If you want to keep driving your vehicle, go to a car paint shop to have the vehicle repaired.

Final words

Dealing with rust spots on a white car is not that easy. And you have to know a lot to paint a vehicle. So, we recommend you go to one of the car paint shops and ask a professional what ways of solving the problem you have. Specialists will look at the rust spots and will show you some ways, starting with cheaper ones. But repairing the metal parts by yourself is an insane idea.