[artfd]

I had my new Carnival rustproofed in early December just before road crews started salting the highways around home. In 1983 I bought a new F250 HD and had a similar thing done to it, but the brand name was different. I drove that truck 150,000 miles in all weathers and didn't bother to wash it off after the highways were heavily salted every winter. By the time I junked the truck in 2014, the undercarriage and body had very little rust. The leading lower edge of the hood had some rust through areas, probably a spot they didn't apply any of their goop to. So I think the money I spent on rustproofing worked for me very well.
In 2002 I bought a lightly used 2001 F150 and never rustproofed it. By Nov 2011 the lower body rust was so bad that the radiator core support sheet metal had rusted through completely. It would have cost over $1700 to have that fixed, $1600 of which would have been the labor necessary for the repairman to access the whole area of the core support sheet metal. I toured one of the local junk yards and found about a dozen F150s on the lot from the same era as my 2001 F150. Every single one of those junked trucks had a completely rusted out radiator core support, which flaw seemed to be the reason for junking such a relatively young truck.
Since I hope my Carnival will outlast me, I thought rustproofing might be a good idea.
An unexpected benefit I noticed as soon as I drove away from the Ziebart place was a big decrease in highway noise. Whatever they applied to the underside of the Carnival made it much quieter.

 

[starling]

While rust isn't a problem in our area I like the idea of the additional sound deadening and will probably do something similar when we get our Carnival. Thanks for posting.

 

[brians]

How much does the rust-proofing cost, and where did you get it? I'm unfamiliar with this but sounds like a good way to protect the investment. We just bought our Carnival and I expect it will be my last big family car purchase before all of the kids are off to college.

 

[artfd]

How much does the rust-proofing cost, and where did you get it? I'm unfamiliar with this but sounds like a good way to protect the investment. We just bought our Carnival and I expect it will be my last big family car purchase before all of the kids are off to college.

It cost me $690 give or take a few $, tax included. Zeibart has many outlets in Ohio. They have a website but it isn't worth much in finding outlets near many people in the USA. For example, as best I can tell they have zero outlets in Colorado. Their website finding aid is really poor. Google wasn't much help either, mostly it displayed places that don't have the Zeibart process. The process takes about 3 hours total. To maintain their 10 year warranty, you have to bring it back annually for touch ups. This won't be a problem for me since their local outlet is very close to home. If you don't have one in your state, you might be able to locate an outlet on a road trip. Places that don't use much salt on their roads tend not to have outlets offering the Zeibart process. Good luck!