I just dropped of my car for getting serviced.
My car is now a week old and I droped of my XB for Undercoat and services.
Under coat is suppose to reduce the outside noise by 20%. It was one of the dealers option that costs 300dollars. I will see how much reduction there is going to be. Also they are fixing the rattle noise i was having by the drivers side pillar. So i got a loaner car and i am driving the 06 XA. And the car seems very small compare to the XB. Glad i got the XB

 

Save your money! Do it yourself with the 3M stuff you buy in a can...

 

Just Say No to undercoating. It causes more problems than it solves. It plugs up all the drain holes and actually causes rust. Not to mention the awfull smell after it is done. It kills the new car smell. The best way to avoid rust is by bi-yearly inspections of the undercarriage and touch up spots as nessasary. If you want sound proofing us dynamat Inside the car.

 

I had mine done at the dealer and I am glad i did.
It was the only thing extra i got at the dealer.
just make sure you get the rubber base undercoating.
The smell only last for a day or two.
Undercoating did a great job deading the road noise.
Take my word for it as i have driven more than 2,000,000 miles
in my life. I have had undercoating on every car and truck i have every owned.

 

And you live in NC where I would see it as completely pointless aside from a slight sound reduction (very slight, I doubt most would hear a noticeable differance). I live in upstate NY where we measure snow in feet not inches and I still wouldnt have my car undercoated at a dealer.

It's extremely overpriced and if not done properly (which it rarely is) can cause more problems than it helps.

The dealers love to hype it up because it's 95% profit.

 

300 dollars???!!! do that junk yourself...i plan on just undercoating my rear wheel wells sometime soon, might do the whole car, but not for a while from now, but we'll see how that goes

 

Mine cost me a half rack of brewski....My father in law is a mechanic here at a GM dealership. He did my alignment after I lowered it and his buddy undercoated it for some pale ale. I didn't really notice a reduction in noise, I just did it cause he offered.

 

Yes we only have snow in inches but that does not mean they don't use salt on the roads.
Do you live by the Atlantic Ocean where the salt air and salty rain blows in?
I guess you do not have any dirt or muddy roads in NY you have to use.
Yes we know that the dealer makes a big profit, But it's better than laying on you back
in the dirt with spray cans of undercoating and having the overspray in your face.
If the undercoating gets knocked off on some of NC's redneck dirt roads I have a warrenty.
After 25 years in the Auto industy I would recommend undercoating to everyone, no matter where you live.
Remember you don't always drive on pretty sunny days on nice roads.

Don't always judge a book by it's cover!!

 

My uncle does autobody work for a living, and I spent a summer or two at his shop when I was a teenager. I still remember the pickup truck that was in for some serious work, it had one of those stickers on it indicating it had the undercoating. I asked him if it worked, and he pointed to the frame where it had been applied. As he peeled it up, the rust dropped off the frame and then the frame itself disappeared when he crushed it with his hand. All it does is trap the moisture that ends up getting through the undercoat.

It's a nice theory, but it doesn't work. A scratch or a spot where it's not applied, and it magnifies the problem 100%.

 

It still amazes me that people pay good money for such a lame product. Plus it makes it harder to see if there is any rust starting because it is all covered with that tar like substance. You don't see the rust till the rustproofing falls off in sheets and the metal is reduced to a crumbly mess.
For true sound-deadening use dynamat or something like it INSIDE your ride. Leave the undercarriage the way Scion made it. It will also make it Easier and Cleaner to work on in the future.

 

Anybody else think of this:



We sat right here in this room
and went over this.



- Yah, but that TruCoat...
- I said I didn't want any TruCoat.



Yah, but I'm saying, that TruCoat, you
don't get it, you get oxidation problems...



You're sitting there talking in circles
like we didn't go over this already.



- Yeah, but this TruCoat...
- We had a deal for $ .



Darned if you didn't tell me you'd get me
this car without the sealant for $ .



- All right, I'm not saying I didn't.
- You called me and said you had it.



"Ready to make delivery" you says.



And here you are and you're
wasting my time and my wife's time.



And I'm paying $
for this vehicle here.



All right.



I'll talk to my boss.



See, they install that TruCoat
at the factory. There's nothing we can do.



But I'll talk to my boss.



These guys here. These guys.



It's always the same. It's always more.



- You going to the Gophers on Sunday?
- Oh, you betcha.



You wouldn't have an extra ticket?



You kiddin'?



Well.



He's never done this before, but seein' as
it's special circumstances an' all,



he says I can knock $ off that TruCoat.



One hundred?



You lied to me, Mr Lundegaard.
You're a bald-faced liar.



Bucky, please.



A... ____ing liar.



Bucky, please.



Where's my goddamn chequebook?
Let's get this over with.



Where is it?

 

Jethro hit the nail on the head. The thing is that undercoat could be a good thing but the way most dealers put it on isnt. They just slather it on and leave it at that. You need to mask off areas of the underside of the car (like the drain holes) or it will cause water (or worse, salt water) to sit between the undercoating and the metal.

Obviously this defeats the entire purpose of undercoating and in fact makes it counterproductive.

You say rust would be covered by the warranty but you won't see it till it's too late because the 1/8th inch layer of goop covers it up.

I used to live in SC (admitedly not on the coast) and car bodies lasted 2-3 times as long down there as up here. The engine and/or transmission was usually gone well before the body was a issue. If NC is different I apoligize.

 

what i plan on doing on mine is taking alchohol to the exposed areas and then doing it on nice cold non humid day, hopefully that'll work...anyone have any other advice on it? i'm just donig the rear wheel wells, not the whole underside of the car

 

Just be careful not to leave any air pockets where the metal seams or bends.

Take your time and you'll do fine.

 

Oh man cierrecart, that was EXACTLY what was going through my head!

I live in NC and have lived where it ices over every other week in winters and the roads stay salted from Jan-Feb, and never had undercoat on anything. Never had problems. I also had a jeep wrangler in the same conditions that I often took offroad and wheeling on the beach, never had problems.

This is just my .02.

Not that it would be rule of law for everyone, but I would'nt worry about getting it done. Actually, if I were to want it, I would do it myself anyway. Masking everything off yourself and painting that stuff on carefully and methodically is a great way to have some quality one-on-one time with your vehicle.

 

That movie about the undercoating was Fargo. Quite funny.
If you wanted sound deadening I say use that spray-on bed liner stuff. It dries real hard and will also work as rust proofing. I used it on the tongue of my motorcycle trailer.

 

yeah, i want the undercoating for two reasons, the sound deadening and the fact that the scion wheel wells are painted the same color as the car, so it kinda sticks out in the wheels (even though my car is black, you can see the gloss), and some of my undercoatnig got messed up from when i rolled my fenders, so i'll just recoat it all while i'm down there, help blend it in better too

 

Just got my car back from the dealers. Got the under coat done and some other minor fixes. It didnt stink as much as I was expecting. The undercoat I've got is not the one that protects the car getting rust or saltwater. It was for sound deadning. In seattle It rains a lot. I mean ALOT. I'm noticing a lot quiter ride. Especially in the water. Before the undercoat i can hear all the water hiting the wheel well and it would sound like my car was a pepsi can. Now its sounds more sturdier and harder menaing less cheap feeling. And the 300dollars was not paid up front, It was a dealer option so it went in with the finance. Only added like a dollar or two more a month. So people thank you so much for the replies and i hope this helps.

 

Only problem with that is you are paying interest on that 300 bucks over the length of the loan. You prolly won't keep it long enough to worry about the future rust problems anyhow.