washed the kj last night and noticed that it was starting to rust...not too noticable, just these small red specs along one of the spines on the roof. So i did a search, saw that Sean had a similar problem, but his was on the doors which made sense because of the northern winters. So i took it over to the dealer this morning, the service desk guy and the manager looked it and told me to bring it in later in the week so the body shop could buff it out. The manager said it wasn't an uncommon problem, something about damage during transport, along the same lines as another post that thread i found.

Has anybody else had the same problem, and did the dealer buff it out? Sean if you are around i would be interested in how yours turned out. Another question i have is that i've done the rejex thing twice...should i switch back to conventional wax?

You think the Jeep itself was rusting or was there something ON the Jeep that was rusty? I've heard of railway transported vehicles getting stuff on them that makes rust spots on the paint that can be removed. Around here there is something in the pavement that has the same effect, I get tiny rust colored specs on my white car that wash off with some effort. Good wax really helps.

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Early '02 Limited, Steel Blue, White Guts

At first i thought it was something stuck to the jeep, when the bugs hit my grill they leave red marks a lot of the time. Its definately the body panels that are rusting, not something stuck to them. I spent a few minutes trying to rub out the red spots with soap and water, then tried bug and tar remover and no change. I had a friend take a look and give the same thing a try, same result. In a couple of spots, you can feel some pitting in the clear coat/paint. I've never put anything on my roof, never park it under trees and keep it covered when i can. If it was on the lower parts of the door or anywhere on the front end, i would have thought it was something in or on the roads that caused it. Not that i would have been pleased it happened after less than a year regardless.

The manager at the dealership looked and said the same thing you did, its something that can be a result of transport. I may switch to wax instead of rejex after this is taken care of. The front right fender paint also had an imperfection in the paint (their words) that i noticed right after delivery. A small area where it looks like the paint bubbled a little. I pointed it out, but they gave me such a run around with that and the other minor stuff that wasn't in order, i gave up on getting it fixed at the time. Now that there are more paint problems, it looks like they are giving in.

Yea sounds like you might have a paint problem. Where are you located?? Any foundries or the like near you?

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Early '02 Limited, Steel Blue, White Guts

for the most part i've been around houston....i'm not too familiar with the area, so i couldn't say much about if there are foundries around here. But there are plenty of rail lines around, and a busy rail bridge i have to pass under on my way to just about everywhere. Don't know if stuff comes off of that, or how it would effect the paint months after it left the factory. But if it does, that may explain why i have a problem on the roof and somewhere like the lower door panels.

About a year after I got my Jeep it got a small bubble in the middle of the hood that I had to apply some of DC's touchup paint to. It seemed to be caused by this sticky pink sap stuff that fell on my car. There was also a spot of it on the glass of my side view mirror and six months (and multiple car washes) later the sap is still on the mirror I also got some tar on my fender flares and doors but that came off really easily with a little Spray 9 and lots of water.

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Jeep Liberty Wikibook
# cd /home/fuzzymuzzle.com

I've heard leaving most anything sit on the car long enough, sap, bird crap, etc will damage the paint. Since this is the first new car i've ever owned, i've been pretty protective of it. It gets hand washed at least once, usually twice a month. And the inside gets detailed about once a month. I think that's why i'm pretty unhappy about the paint issue, i know it's not me on this one.

The strange thing is my hood and grille has a couple of very small chips, but no rust. I had a bad enough time painting my flares, i want no peice of using touchup paint.

Apparently new cars are galvanized before they're painted, so even if the paint chips off they shouldn't rust. Cutting, drilling, and putting dissimiliar metals together can screw up the galvanized coating though. I know it's not related to your problem, but whenever I drill a hole in my Liberty I coat the area around the hole with touchup kit primer.

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Jeep Liberty Wikibook
# cd /home/fuzzymuzzle.com

yea... the dealer blew me off on it, said there was nothing they could do.

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2006 Renegade 4x4

That sucks...we'll see what my dealer does, the KJ is scheduled to go in tomorrow.

success?

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2006 Renegade 4x4

kind of...it still has to go back to fix the imperfection in the paint (looks like its bubbling, not rust). For the rust spots, they didn't go thru diamler chrysler in any way, said they would fix it in house. For the bubbling paint area, they had to get approval from DC to do the work, which they said would take a few days...so i took the jeep home until they got approval. What they did fix came out pretty well....We'll see how long it takes for the spots to return, if they do at all.

What really surprised me was that they detailed the the inside and outside of KJ. Between the detailing and the keeping the repairs in house i got a little suspicous. This was the same place last year that took three visits to get the plastic cover on the hinges fixed and never gave me back my stock radio when i upgraded to the nav system. Since it hasn't been that clean since the day i bought it, i took it home and waxed it that afternoon, and found more rust spots, this time on the bottom half of the doors. We'll see if they'll fix that too when it goes back in...that will be a good test of how well they've improved their customer service.

How old is your Jeep? Is it under warranty? Think you should be looking into Lemon Law if it keeps rusting? I'm in WI where they salt the hell out of the roads all Winter and I don't have any body rust at all on my '02...

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Early '02 Limited, Steel Blue, White Guts

Next week will be one year, bought new. If it rusts in any spot they've taken care of, then i might consider something as extreme as the lemon law. But if it gets to that point, i'd rather keep the jeep and get it repainted (hopefully at DC's expense). I've put too much into the jeep to just give it up. The rust spots i found after i got the KJ back from the dealership aren't in the same place as they worked on the first time. I should probably ask them to do whatever the did to the whole vehicle instead of a single area that's showing signs of rust. That way if i find any other spots down the road, i know their fix isn't working.