Ultrasport Door Blade Rust Issue

[markg]

Are any other USP owners seeing rust on their doors just above the door blades?

[Spike00513]

Didn't someone have and fix this? Or was that BEHIND the doorblade.
IDK if this is unique to just USP's.
I think someone else also recently touched up a rusty scratch on a rear fender arch, using an OEM paint-match spray can, and it looked good.

Doesn't Audi have 12yr body corrosion/rust protection warranty? Meaning if it's an 05MY, = 2017, and I think USP was '04-'05?
Maybe they'd goodwill it?
I wonder how the car was maintained. I am not blaming you, I'm just curious. In other words, could $10 in detailing product cost be the difference between corrosion and not?

For example, I've never actually taken off the doorblades (easy, 2 screws) to wash and wax underneath.
And whatever wax I do use elsewhere, is cheap off-the-self random stuff.
Literally this:


As opposed to stuff like Collinite 845 Insulator Wax, Sonax Polymer Netshield, etc. - all of which are a bit pricier and supposedly much better. I never tried them, and the recommendations I was given are not recent, so IDK if anything better has since come on the market to phase it out.

Wonder if that would be preferable to swapping a whole door shell over. Because although you might be able to find one for at least $50, what are the odds it's from a car that matches your paint color, and say for example not a silver or red car?

__________
I'd actually be interested in swapping a shell on mine but for a different reason - the car is dented and IDK if PDR can fix it. I have one, but it's just the shell. So IDK how to swap the weather strip seal onto it. In other words, it's not as straight forward as unbolting it from a donor. Because this shell, and salvage yards sometimes keep theirs on storage racks this way, is "stripped". No window frame bolted on. No sound deadening piece. etc.



Isn't the only black, Brilliant Black?
For example with grey, there's many. Atlas Grey. Dolphin Grey Pearl. And B7 also was available in Daytona Grey (Pearl?) which looks similar to Dolphin but less bluish.
I wouldn't want to accidentally put on the wrong shade.

Do collision repair/body shops order new primed OEM parts? Or install used?
These seem to have quality finish and be uniform production. I bet if you swap a used trunk from another car it will look the same and not be faded from the sun, unless it's really bad, and sat outside uncovered, unprotected in the hot beating sun for 10 years straight in an Arizona junkyard or something?

And people do that. Finding a same-color euro trunk with the wider plate design, to bolt on.

[Gosser]

Most B6s suffer from this. Mud, dirt, salt, moisture gets trapped behind them and that develops.
Cleaning behind the blades is good practice, but not something most original owners would have ever done, therefore the damage is already done by the time people like us get them. My S4 came out pretty clean, mint actually, but it was never winter driven.




My wifes A4 wasnt so lucky and its only a matter of time until its visible.

[rocket1420]

My wifes A4 wasnt so lucky and its only a matter of time until its visible.

Fix it now! Especially if it isn't yet visible. It's easy to fix and you'll be glad you did it.

[Nollywood]

No rust on mine. Though I've deleting them, when I strip the car down for the B7 RS4 bodywork. I've never even understood why Audi have those useless blades anyway.

For a modern car, the B6 doesn't seem to be that well protected against corrosion. The C3 Audi 100 / 200 range was excellent. I remember all the ones I had, never had corrosion issues. Even one that had a big ding in the leading edge of the hood, and had lost its paint. It remained a clean grey for almost 10 months, until I replaced it.

[5ktq]

I think the C3 was one of the last cars built before value engineering kicked in. My 88 is still rustless, even places missing a bunch of paint (like stone chips I've never fixed in years). Thicker zinc on them, I guess.

The door blade design is just not very good. All those little metal studs get coated in salt and grit, vibrate when you close the door, stay wet longer than the rest of the car.. it's recipe for rust. Might be ok outside of the rust belt, but in salt country there's no way those things are going to hold up.

I think in the summer I'll cut the bad shape studs off mine, blast, paint, and put blades on with windshield urethane or something. Maybe cut them all off for preventative maintenance. :/



Coincidentally the only place I've had rust on the late C3s (early models the back half wasnt galvanized) was metal studs below the trunk that hold the NA-spec bumper trim. Oh man those germans. In EU spec cars, the trim is bolted to the bumper. But since NA cars have stupid fucking 5mph bumpers with shocks on them, they mounted the trim to the body (so it wouldn't shear off when you hit something with the bumper, and the absorbers let the bumper come in). Big mistake, as they mounted it with welded on studs, instead of plastic inserts or something.

It's sort of neat, how they made the bumper all reusable and shock absorbing like. New cars just explode their $1k+ bumper cover instead (not sure how that meets 5mph spec but..)

Like I was under the impression the POINT of 5MPH bumpers was so that sloooow accidents didn't end up costing you a fortune. That's obviously not the case anymore so...

C3's with EU spec bumpers look so much better ; ;