I've been considering driving the new defender I've purchased on the beach and have been looking into a viable rust protection strategy. Has anyone else looked into this or gone with a solution for this?

Thanks!

 

It's aluminum

 

A beach is probably the worst place to take any car on a regular basis, whether it's made of steel, aluminum or unobtainium . You may want to look at an old car for that kind of thing.

Otherwise, get your car ceramic coated and may be vinyl wrapped and put the car through a drive-thru wash/wax (incl underside) after each beach run. When you get home, have a dehumidifier in your garage and a fan blowing under the car. you will want to remove all sea salt and sand from anywhere it will collect--which is everywhere of course. The worst places are the places you do no see. You could also look at the boating industry and see what products they sell to protect against salt-related corrosion.

 

My mechanic recommended lanolin wax, and specifically said they had been using Fluid Film on the undersides of Rovers for years. He recommended I use it on the underside of the P300. Looks like you can't it at almost any auto parts place, but I found decent options on Amazon.

 

We had two 2013 LR4's...one with 131,000 miles now that we took everywhere, including frequent trips to the beach in summer and weekly trips to VT in winter on heavily salted roads. The other LR4 was our garage queen with 35K miles. Both have light surface rust on their steel frames but not a drastic difference in underbody corrosion. Neither has any rust on any body panels. The Defender is mostly aluminum underbody, so unless you plan to keep it 20 years, just take it to the beach as-is and enjoy it.

 

Road salt is a million times worse than the beach. My LR3 has been on the beach a bunch of times every year for the last 15 years and it has very little surface rust on its frame.

 

They have steel subframes.

 

Please look at these insane photos below. This is a 2014 Range Rover (Full Size) from the UK.. L405. A mechanic posted this on a Range Rover forum and it’s becoming increasingly common. Also note the brake pipes etc. Also all the little brackets are steel, and other components are steel.

This is what I worry about. Galvanic corrosion between the steel attachment and aluminum body / subframe mounting points -- water gets trapped there, add a little salt mixture and .. the aluminum quite literally has potential to dissolve. It is an unfixable, unweldable, unrepairable condition.

Corrosion on ancillary components is going to be a huge concern with the L663 as is corrosion in these same areas... I’d say if you take it to the beach, you still should exercise caution, and clean the salt off. And use something like Woolwax here and there.

BTW -- personally, I’ve taken mine on the beach in Oregon multiple times, and will continue to do so because it’s great fun however I don’t go in the water with it. Beach yes. Water and waves no . I would never ever drive any car I cared about in salt water. Death recipe over time.

https://www.fullfatrr.com/forum/post612244.html

These photos aren’t a Range Rover Classic, P38, L322. That’s an L494. A modern vehicle. Constructed largely the exact same way as our L663 - it’s an all aluminum truck too. Clearly this thing has lived a very rough life but... wow






To pile on... here is a photo of the fuel tank cover on a 2014+ Range Rover sport (L494). Also a very similarly constructed aluminum vehicle. Our Defenders have basically the exact same steel guard over our fuel tank just forward of the rear wheels on both sides. This is in the USA. Expect the same issues on L663 10 years from now in salty climates, is my point. https://www.rangerovers.net/threads/...0#post-2499690

 

Ouch.

 

Galvanic corrosion is a thing and its insidious. It is extremely difficult to stop and you won't know its a problem for years. On my big truck, the body is 6061 T6 aluminum but the wagon top is mild steel. The factory installed a 1/4" thick rubber gasket on the mating surface where the two meet however - over the course of 15 to 20 years, most wagon tops are completely rusted away due to water intrusion.

I have a feeling that the L663 will be similarly affected - especially in conditions like where I live where during the winter, there's so much salt on the roads that the pavement turns white (and not from snow) alongside being 300 feet from the Atlantic Ocean.

That being said, I did look under my L663 which has spent its whole life in Massachusetts and Maine with no additional undercoating that I know of - and it looks pretty new. Some surface rust is starting to form on exposed bolt heads but its doing pretty well for a car thats spent 3.5 winters in coastal New England. I think I am going to invest in a undercoating to protect it long term however. My big truck uses NH Oil which is a sticky black oil that goes all over everything and its worked magnificently, but its also a huge mess when you have to work on anything under the truck. Rust-Chek looks a lot more civilized.