We’re relocating our defender from Calif to CT. Wondering if northeast owners / dealers do undercoat by default or not? Thx

 

It may still be on that long list of upcharge items the finance manager at the dealership tries to sell you. But from my experience, it's obsolete. I've even heard of it clogging drain points and causing more rust as water collects inside. Our old LR4 had zero body rust after 8 winters and 160K miles including weekend trips from Boston to VT on heavily salted roads. Just some surface rust on the cast iron underbody frame and suspension parts. Defender is a unibody with more aluminum parts so I don't think you have to worry about rust.

 

Only the monocoque body is aluminum. The fenders, doors are stamped steel.

 

Not sure if you can undercoat the inside of the doors and fenders. But I highly recommend ceramic coating the outside of body panels.

 

I think ‘undercoating’ is a scam as others have said.

I got my Defender in late December in Rhode Island, and when i did the lucky8 slider install a couple weeks ago, i removed the felt/aero under body panels and everything they covered (which is pretty much everything sans exhaust) was squeaky clean. We treat the roads with tons of salt here. If you never remove those panels down there, i think you’ll be absolutely fine.

What I would recommend is getting some PPF on the front and doors though. I got xpel ultimate myself. Ceramic coating is a good call too. Anything to help protect the painted steel parts of the car

 

The thing I noticed about my Mercedes Benz SUV(made in Germany not Alabama) is the under body parts, suspension components is wrapped with some plastic shield. That helps with preventing corrosion from salt sprays, road debris etc. so the felt cover should work too!

 

Thanks for comments. I left Toronto a long time ago (when cars were made for rust) for sunny-it-barely-rains California so wasn’t sure what the current northeast sense was.

did ppf on front and door edges etc, will do ceramic before fall.

 

Not sure if this product is available in the US but it offers underbody protection without the mess of underselling, seems easy to apply and needs topped up annually:

https://www.lanoguard.co.uk/collecti...hoCYTUQAvD_BwE