So how many of you have removed the rubber strip in the rear & front wheel arches ? I can see this is a potential serious corrosion point ! How many of you have already found rust under this strip ? It easily slides off, do not try and open wide as it just slides off to reveal a horrid mess built up ! I can see this point corroding all the way into the rear door aperture within a short time !

http://www.freel2.com/forum/topic11425.html?highlight=arch+rubber
http://www.freel2.com/forum/topic6750.html?highlight=arch+rubber
http://www.freel2.com/forum/topic10227.html?highlight=arch+rubber
http://www.freel2.com/forum/topic9622.html?highlight=arch+rubber

hope they help

Thanks NPinks

Its not the strip I'm worried about its the corrosion ! its bubbling the paint up. Thats appalling design, what will the corrosion warranty cover. Mines still only done 20K from new and never been off road. You will see how clean the underside is in the photo

Click image to enlarge

Click image to enlarge

suppose you could take off the strip put some wax oil on the wing edge and put the strip back will give some protection because wax oil self flows into scratched areas  rainy-city
xs

I've been concerned that this would happen to my MY11. So I pulled all the wheel arch strips off and coated the inside of them with this stuff

http://www.hammerite-automotive.com/waxoyl.htm

and have placed them back on.

I've used Waxoyl for years, including on a couple of kit cars I built and I have to say it's great stuff. I've also coated the (horizontal) chassis legs in the front wheel arches of my Freelander with Waxoyl as it appears LR only paint the chassis with good old black enamel, which certainly up here in Scotland doesn't stand the amount of stones/rubbish/winter salt we get on the roads and starts chipping off an and consequently rusting fairly quickly.

No - they just fell off! - 2007(57) XS Auto, Rimini Red, Alpaca Leather.
- GCS Hawke - Sports, BRG, Vulcan 2.1 inj'. My toy - built it myself in 2001.

Thanks for the waxoil tip, i used to use wax oil for many years and there's no doubt its good stuff, but one of my cars I gave an extra dosage of wax-oil & it wiped out the anti -corrosion warranty on one of my cars, the dealer didn't want to know so I Dont want to effect the corrosion warranty.

To be honest that wheel arch is appalling design, very thin and a magnet for rust under a rubber strip ! I reckon in 4-5 year olds we will be seeing some rusty wheel arches & that will be bad news.

I wouldn't mind if mine had been used hard & kept outside , but its in a warm dry garage & kept spotlessly clean

mine were filthy but the paint work was unaffected, maybe too much soap and detergent is getting under your strips


RRS has same strips so probably disco too At work
At home

"I can't always believe facts I read on the web" - Charles Dickens

winner by default of the tractor vs caravan race

From the bottom photo it looks to me like they are just rough because of weld corrugations, not rust. In which case as long as the paintwork is intact you should be OK. Brian

MY11 FL2 SD4 GS
Extras to same spec as XS apart from the Satnav, plus Xenons.
Ipenema Sand, Ebony.

oldgeezer wrote:

I wouldn't mind if mine had been used hard & kept outside , but its in a warm dry garage & kept spotlessly clean

oldgeezer, a warm dry garage is good for a completely dry car, but otherwise if the car is damp at all will increase corrosion.

When ever its washed it stays out, and its barley ever been out in the rain ! only use it in the summer for towing my caravan to the south of France !

As you can see from the photo's its still as new underside as it really gets used like a dry weather bike.
The wheel arch design is just poor, & would suggest others check theirs carefully.

thanks oldgeezer, I'll need to examine mine

Iain