Rusty front suspension

[flyingscot]

I recently bought a pristine (apart from a small amount of damage to the front clam which is currently being fixed) June 2009 Elise SC. The car is resplendent in Persian Blue Metallic with twin white stripes, and goes and looks great.

Following the detailed instructions on the SELOC site, I've successfully removed the front clam. Here's a picture of the car with the clam removed -


Whilst the clam's off, I'm taking the opportunity to replace the weedy standard horn with a Stebel Nautilus airhorn. Apart from that though I didn't intend to do anything else - the car has only done 5,000 miles and still has a year's warranty left. The previous owner had kept it in a heated garage, so I expected the underpinnings to be in good nick, but as you'll see from the following photos, that's anything but the case -


This is a photo of the nearside front suspension. The upper and lower wishbones are both badly corroded and the suspension upright has a thick coat of orange rust on it.


The offside suspension is exactly the same. Note in both photos, the anti-roll bar which is painted black, the coil spring and the Bilstein shock absorber are all pristine, as is the alloy chassis.


This is a close up of the upper wishbone showing the corrosion and pitting.

It seems evident to me that Lotus in their infinite wisdowm have chosen to put out the car with no surface protection at all on the these suspension components - no plating or galvanising of any sort, nor any paint coating. Just unprotected mild steel or cast iron. Even on a mass produced eurobox, you would expect at least that these days, but not on a £37k high performance sports car which is supposedly handbuilt with great care. Frankly, I'm pretty disillusioned by this, and I wondered if any other owners out there have experienced the same.

I don't have a problem in stripping down the suspension as a winter project and having it bead blasted and powder coated, but with a year of manufacturer's warranty still to run, do you think I have due cause to ask Lotus to do this work as clearly it's not fit for purpose (i.e. being used for a number of years in varying weather conditions on our wonderful pothole and speed bump infested roads)! Rant over!

[Rich H]

The wishbones are zinc passivated, that looks like surface cossosion of the coating, the white crystalline stuff is the zinc oxide. The cast sections will have surface rust, I doubt it's anything more than that. It is inevitable this will happen on any car in the UK due to the salt on the road.

A warm garage is also a problem if the road salt or sea salt was not washed off first, nice warm environment with salty water = accelerated corrosion.

Ask lotus if they expect to see this see what they say could have been an problem with the coating - or maybe they are saving money...

[robin]

I wouldn't spend 5 seconds worrying about 20 years from now they'll look just the same and your car will still go round the corners without the wishbones failing

Cheers,
Robin

[flyingscot]

Thanks for the responses, guys.

I'm not unduly worried about the structural integrity of the components concerned - just disappointed that they couldn't apparently be bothered to spend a couple of minutes putting a protective paint coating on a brand new and shiny casting before mounting it on the car. The painted components are all like brand new - it's not that they've been subjected to a highly durable epoxy coating or the like. There's absolutely no other evidence that the car was used on gritted roads. The aluminium undertrays are spotless, as are all the chassis members under the wheel arches. In this day and age, you really shouldn't have to spend several nights wire brushing rusted components on a one year old car costing this amount of money. Or am I just expecting too much of Lotus?

[r10crw]

I think your expecting to much, and you dont need to spend time wire brushing/painting like Robin mentioned they will be perfectly fine for many years. The surface corrossion you see is the zinc oxidising and actually acts as a protective barrier. If you feel you need it to look tidy by all means get them blasted and powdercoated, however Ive seen this done and after a few months they can look horrendous with rust and this time it will eat in to the wishbone.
Just my 2p Craig.

[Rich H]

Blast and proper hot dip galv like the subframe, will last for ages and remain pretty.

To be fair though I'd pop Lotus an e-mail and express your displeasure at the apparently manky look of year old wishbones.
Ask them if this is typical (It is but ask them to confirm) If no one moans they will never make any effort...

[flyingscot]

OK - I get the message. It's not pretty but it's functional. I like the idea of a proper clean up and hot dip galvanise, but it sounds like a winter job - there aren't enough nice summer days to have the car off the road for a few weeks with a front suspension strip down. I'll concentrate on getting the front clam back on and getting it back on the road! Thanks for the replies, guys.

[Baggy]

waxoil them just now and do strip down a galvi when the bushes/balljoints give up.

[Ferg]

There seem to be many folk who POR15 the wishbones rather than galvanise them. I suppose it's equally as effective and maybe slightly easier to do at home.