My XJR had a few rust issues when I bought it. There is a rust hole under the tail lamp in the right rear wing, a rust hole in the bottom of the right front wing, and a bubble under the tail lamp in the left rear wing.

My question is, the car spent its entire life in Florida, so where did the rust come from? It is spotless underneath, down to the fuel and brake lines which still look brand new. I know it's not a flood car, because I bought it from a dealer who was a customer of ours, and he used it as his daily driver for two years and put 15,000 miles on it in that time. Everything still works on the car, except for the seat memory, which is likely a bad module. I would think flood related issues would have popped up quite some time ago.

He bought the car in Florida, and took it back down there two years in a row for the winter. It has never seen a flake of snow.

The car has been repainted, which is obvious from the tape lines around the door handles and inside the fuel filler, and from the overspray inside the doors.

Any ideas? Are these areas prone to rust, even when not exposed to harsh Michigan winters?

 

Maybe prior to pinting the mechanics or someone scratched the paint, or stone chips occurred etc exposing bare metal.. then it was painted over AFTER rust started.
cut and welld the rust hole out.
Don't use chemicals as they don't work.. NONE o.
Peter

 

Salt is salt. If the car was kept near the beach in Florida, that could explain the rust. I have seen cars here that were bought new and never taken out of Southern California become total rust buckets over time just because they lived here by the ocean.

 

I have no experience with body work, so I'm not going to ruin this beautiful car by attempting to fix it myself... lol.

I am deciding if I should try to get it fixed eventually, when I can afford to, or if I should just buy a nicer XJR in a few years. The car does have 147,000 miles on it, so I'm not sure if it is worth the thousand of dollars it would cost to have the rust areas repaired, and the entire car stripped and repainted. I won't be driving it in the winter, so it will take a while for the rust to get worse.

I still get a ton of compliments on the car, it is a nice 10 footer.

Decisions, decisions...