An ominous brown stain on the fender. A bubble in the paint at the bottom of a door. Soaked floors after hitting a puddle. These are signs the iron worm has been hard at work: rust.

Otherwise fine cars are routinely sent to early graves because of rust, even though it’s a largely avoidable problem. With iron-based metals, battling oxidation can feel like a Sisyphean task. In spite of the advanced coatings and alloys developed by chemists and engineers, iron’s unstable chemical makeup means it will always succumb to rust in a natural environment. In fact, iron and most steel will completely reduce to iron oxide and other constituent elements over a long enough time.

This doesn't mean that your car is doomed! Understanding how cars rust, your car’s problem areas, and how to address that brown, flaky trouble means that your pride and joy can stay on the road as long as you do.

Why Do Cars Rust?

Rust forms as a result of the electrochemical breakdown of iron-based metals. This breakdown is the result of oxidation, which is the process where iron surface molecules react with oxygen in the environment and produce a new molecule, Fe2O3, otherwise known as iron oxide. That iron oxide is rust.

Pure iron doesn't oxidize as aggressively. Examine an old iron engine block and you'll see a thin surface layer of rust but little penetration into the metal. Unfortunately, iron alone isn't a particularly good material for building cars, so today’s cars typically use steel alloys. Adding a dollop of carbon to iron creates steel, which offers dramatic improvements in flexibility, tensile strength, and formability. However, this added strength comes at a cost, as it adds impurities that accelerate the formation of rust.

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