How to make your car last longer

[SirDavidAlhambra]

Hello everyone!

What are your best tips for making your car last longer?

My main tip is to change the oil every 6 months, especially if you do short journeys.

Would be interested in tips against rust etc.

[brianh]

Washing it underneath when the weather is bad (to get the road salt off the car) will help somewhat (particularly the outriggers). And recoating any damaged sections of underseal etc, repairing paint damage will also help stop rust developing

[regw]

I worked with a guy many years ago who would squirt old engine oil in
potential rot zones under the cars/vans after repair or clean up
and adopted it myself.

Its messy as hell but it's worked for my old cars and vans after welding and I've done it on old motor bike frames
and swinging arms as well.
My 40 year old bikes swinging arm is still sound after I had to weld/repair it in 2006
and flushed it through with old engine oil.

[mike wilson]

Old engine oil will, indeed, reduce or stop rusting due to preventing oxygen access but it introduces chemical corrosion from the acidic bye-products of combustion.  A much slower process than rusting but I would just use fresh oil for the price and quantity needed.

[SirDavidAlhambra]

I might put a bit of surplus oil in a garden sprayer and spray it around my wheel arches, there is a bit of rust starting to form there and it would be good to slow it down if I can.

Also I might put a bit on my garden gate which is starting to go rusty

Does anyone know how good used car oil is for protecting fence panels btw

[brianh]

It never fully dries, If you want the creosote look on your fence, plus nothing to grow near it it might work to a degree. I'd suspect if anything it would be worse than leaving the fence with nothing on it as it might even cause the wood to rot.

Plus it would look dreadful and stain anything that touches it.

My mate has a Series III land rover and swears by the same method of rust prevention, but its more effective on that as it actually has a chassis that can be filled with oil. Personally I find it is far too messy and highly antisocial as you leak dirty oil everywhere it goes for weeks afterwards. With used oil that will stain everything it gets near and marks wherever its been parked up as well. At least clean oil wouldn't stain so much, though given the fuss they make over slight oil leaks now on an MOT I'd suspect if you took something like that in for MOT covered in oil that you'd get a failure on it (possibly even refuse to test if it made it difficult to lift at that point due to the oil coating the jacking points)

Getting it on your tyres is obviously not something that would be recommended either, You'd do better to clean the arches up and coat it with something suitable (paint or underseal depending what needs coating)

[mike wilson]

Not to mention that there are _far_ better antirust treatments available.  The _only_ thing old (or fresh) oil has going for it is cheapness.

[SirDavidAlhambra]

which would be the best anti rust treatment please

also does it work on a car that's already a bit rusty

thank you