Ooof, that's rough, common spot for rust on the EVO. 100% what others have already is pull all the trunk liner out to get an idea of what you're really looking at.

I'm gonna say though if you have this visible rust here there are other more damaging trouble spots underneath that car. Love to see pics of the undercarriage, rear subframe attachment points and back as well as the gas tank. I bet they're even worse. Looking about $3-$4K in material and labor to put all that right if it looks how I think it will.

 

When i looked at the undercarriage it looked like it had an anti-corrosion coat of paint on there. I will get more pictures soon, I have not yet checked the gas tank or the rear subframe attachment points because I have not seen anything bad when ive gone underneath the car. I will try to get more pictures this weekend

 

We can easily blame the crap they throw on the roads before it snows here in the northeast. PA probably gets it worse than us in CT :-/

 

I've heard this car cancer example too many times, like it is a disease the car catches. Cars, for the most part, are made of steel. Steel exposed to oxygen turns to rust. Paint and other coatings protect the steel. Driving sand blasts off paint and coatings, soaks bare metal in salty water, plus cars aren't that well protected in the first place.

Steel yachts with epoxy paint and catalytic protection live as long as maintenance is performed and they are always subjected to salt water. Other than waxing our cars for looks, what body maintenance do we perform?

Cars could be made of plastic (Pontiac Fiero), stainless steel (DeLorean) or carbon fiber. But a steel car is only going to last so long – usually not a problem since the engine, drive train and chassis wear out too.

The problem with most rust repairs is that after the repair no effort is made to reseal the area. That's why it rusts out again.

Protecting steel car bodies completely is impossible due to the way they are assembled with spot welded seams. Each one of these seams has to be sealed and remain sealed or it becomes a hotbed for rust. The lip of the fender is a good example.

 

its an apt analogy, in that if you don't remove it and treat the effected area it will continue to spread. Obviously metal is not organic and thus doesn't suffer from literal cancer.....i know i used the words "literally car cancer" my bad...

 

Yeah, I knew what you meant but some people do take it literally

One thing to understand is that about any rust repair ends up requiring bondo in order to obtain a smooth paintable surface. I was viewing a boat building video and they were spreading faring compound on the outer surface of a hull which then would be sanded smooth and painted. Well, they said you could use bondo for this except bondo absorbs water.

The problem with bondo is get one chip in the paint over the bondo and you've got wet bondo which both lifts the paint and causes rust. So, why not use faring compound? Well, they don't. So, there's more than one reason rust repairs frequently aren't successful.

Look in the body repair section of the FSM and see they spend considerable space on how to reapply protective coatings after a repair. My guess is the average bump shop does little of this.

 

What confuses me is that the rust that is on the car is legitimately only in that spot, and the surrounding areas do not make different sounds when knocked on and are just as solid as anywhere else on the car. The owner before me did not have the car for a very long time and considering how he treated the car versus the owner before him.

 

The only way to know is to sand it out. If just on the surface you can probably fix it yourself.

 

I will be sanding the arches down soon, it does appear to be only surface rust, the pictures make the rust look much worse

 

Sounds like a cover up of the under carriage rust. More inspection is needed for sure!