All cars have and enemy. And that enemy is rust. Yes I know a lot of cars are made of aluminum and plastics and various things like that but they still have steel parts. Now a lot of cars use steel lines or steel tubing for brakes and fuel lines and steering and so on.

If those lines aren’t coated, they rust. We see a lot of vehicles with bad brake lines for instance. And it can be a major job to replace them. Vehicle manufacturers are currently coating brake lines and various other steel components with something that looks like this green color here or sometimes it’s black.

That is an anti rust coating. If your car doesn’t have that, it would be a good idea to buy one of the commercial coatings. There’s all sorts of them on the market. Marine anti corrosion are good. Some types of rust proofing and undercoating. Spray these lines and any mild steel parts at least once a year.. and that will help keep them working properly and prevent a big repair bill. None of this stuff is cheap.

Another thing that we see on a lot of cars is where the bottom of the doors rust out. That’s typically because there are two pieces of metal down there that are bonded together and they’re very very close together. That space in there collects dirt.

You may think the door is sealed but the door isn’t sealed. Dirt, water and everything go down through the door and when this builds up in the bottom, the dirt holds moisture and it eats the metal from the inside out.

So when you’re washing your car, make sure you run the hose along the bottom edge of the window so you get some water flow through the door to rinse as much of that mud out of there as is possible.

Alright now another thing. Here we have a parking brake cable. Yes some of you will call it an emergency brake, and some of you might be qualified to use it in an emergency but really it is for parking. And that means you should be using it every time you park the car.

This inner cable moves through a housing and every time you pull up on the lever or push the pedal down, this cable moves in the housing, helps keep it clean, helps prevent rust, and helps prevent pretty major repair bills. So get in the habit of using the parking brake on a regular basis.

These are things that can save you a lot of money over the life of the car. If you have a question or a comment, drop me a line – right here at MotorWeek.