Went and looked at a used 2015 Toyota Rav 4 today. Low mileage, relatively clean interior and exterior. Opened the hood and saw what appears to be rust and mud stains on the hoses. Any idea what could of happened to this vehicle to cause this. Dealer says the service department says engine is great and no problems. I popped the hood on a couple of friends vehicles that are twenty years old and 200,000 plus miles and they look nothing like this. In fact they look very clean. I appreciate all the thoughts and ideas. I even appreciate the foolish comments too.
Thanks -tnscouter

Road salt

Flood?

Salt?

It is a southern car and its service records all show work done at the same southern dealership. However it might have spent considerable time up North. Thank you for your reply. -tnscouter

Battery went boom at one time....its on the drivers side.

Get your brightest flashlight and brightest
headlamp and go back and lay on the front
floorboards and look carefully up under the
dash. If it's been flooded you should be able
to see signs of it.

If it's been submerged, run away fast

look for condensation in the headlights and tail lights

Does she have big thighs?

No??!!!

That rust will scrub off with a toasted waffle.

To me it looks like surface rust caused by road salt on a six year old car. I’m from Michigan it doesn’t look out of place to me but maybe it’s excessive for a southern car?

First clue is the battery terminal nut.

Same corrosion on the nuts low by the framerail (sulfuric).

Second clue is the splatter on the exhaust heat shield from either an exploded battery or the hosing off of one and not getting it diluted.

Maybe
If they have the smallest crack or chip, they will
have moisture eventually even if never flooded

Looks Normal for NE Nebraska

Saltwater, been used on the coast?

Thanks for the thoughts. At first I thought flooding but it just didn't seemed to be that for some reason. I'm really curious what it is. I have no experience with northern cars and the effects of road salt. Thanks -tnscouter

Calcium chloride for 1 million dollars Alex

Typical east coast rust. Look underneath it.

Salt, flooded or road. And that’s just what you can see.

Walk away.

Have the dealer pull a car fax on it. It will tell what has happen if flood.etc. I wont buy without one.

Renegade would roll under it with a creeper or make them put it up on the rack. You should too.

How do you figure Carfax would know if it'd been in a flood?

Well, I wouldn’t buy it until I found out for sure.

On second thought.

That car has had a large amount of salt water on it, in it, whatever.

That metal is far too corroded for that year group. Especially if down south.

I would be as nervous as a hooker in church buying that car.

The carfax does not show any flood or other negative experience. It shows oil changes and service all taking place at the same Tennessee dealership. The local dealer changed the fluids, wipers, and filters. They also changed both front sway bar links before putting it on the lot. Again thanks for the considerations. -tnscouter

I think the battery thing went bad as well.

There are a bunch of good clean vehicles for sale out there. I have several that are over 50 years old with more than 200k miles on them. They look quite clean when compared to that vehicle. I would not buy it.

More better to RUN!!!

Run, run.

And go have a waffle.

It wouldn't tell you if it had ben in a flood, but it would tell you every state that is has been titled in for license plates and how many owners etc. If you can read sign, you should be able to figure it out.

This is my thought. Probably a salvaged vehicle.

Here is a picture of the battery. I added it to my original post. Thanks -tnscouter

Salt water or salted roads is my guess.

I see folks all summer at the local launch with half their rig in the water. Brand new 1 ton Denali with its rear axle under water and the waves lapping over the rear door sills to launch/recover a 30yo POS Bayliner. Pulled one guy out a couple years ago on my way home.

People as a whole are breathtakingly stupid.

ETA- then again, maybe they are leases. Lol.

Salt...that should be the original battery at 5 years...I gotem older then that in this climate! 33below this morning!

And that right there is why I like older trucks. Something that you maintain with basic maintenance but don’t feel to awful bad about dunking the rear axle in a lake, towing snowmobiles up North in and wincing just a little bit when you hear brush scratching against it on a tight two track in bird or deer county.

Nope, no sign of rust corrosion ANYWHERE on the battery.

They didn't re-paint the hold down either....or treat the terminals. Right after they (a dealership selling a car) hosed it down....

Of course saltwater and road salt only effect the parts on the drivers side of the engine.

And I've never seen that before....

Good call on the hold down and terminals.

Easy Rod.....

It's all been said already. Looks like mag chloride exposure to me. That's why I hose down engine and work up underneath vehicle with a hose at the very least in the spring , summer and fall.

Uh, no....

If it ain't road salt, I could have been living in an area with dirt roads, that got muddy and wasn't washed under the hood very much...

figured that if it was owned by women.....

also spending a lot of time near the ocean, with salt water blowing in off the ocean...

I've seen that on cars here in Oregon and California, of vehicles right on the ocean....people will get rid of a car after 4 or 5 years, because they know body rot is coming....

My folks lived in Hawaii for 28 years.. and have been out there multiple times visiting....

on the north shore of Oahu, they had friends with homes right on the ocean... and had cars that rusted out in just 2 or 3 years, and had between 20K to 25,000 miles on them.....

Rust on that engine, means there is rust coming on the body in short order... that is why it was traded in....

What does the underside of the hood look like?

Looks like them seals/gaskets been leaking that oil. Owner thought he was smart and Tried to clean that [bleep] off with purple power, put it on a hot engine, got sick from the fumes, left the purple power still on the engine and went inside. Didn’t even clean it off.

Stripped off all zinc on that metal and it was free to corrode. You’d be good at a serious discount from dealer.

as others have said, that looks like salt. about every car up this way looks like that after a few years unless you wash under the hood regularly. unless this is a killer deal, i'd steer clear.

Ding ding ding

Most likely...

Minnesota is known for the crap it puts on roads and what it does to vehicles. I can’t count the vehicles I’ve hadthru personal and business ownership and never had one look that way particularly with low mileage.
Could be road crap but I think there is more to this than just that.
I have a 79 fj40 that has been thru every kind of heck and they are notorious for rusting, it doesn’t even look like that.

Osky

Check the label to see where it was made. If it was made in Japan it would have sat on a pier in both Japan and the US and would have had a long boat trip. Some models are stored there until shipped to a distributor or dealer. So it would have been exposed to salt water for a good deal of time. The components pictured have the lightest corrosion protection so would show premature wear.

I’m thinking it’s been underwater. Whatever actually happened, I’d leave it there. If the electrical connections/components look like that there’ll be nothing but headaches.

I see more and more subdivisions here in Tennessee being built in places that flood. If that car wasn’t taken to a dealership because of it, and there wasn’t an insurance claim, how do you figure Carfax would know about it?

Is the corrosion/rust worse on the one side? It appears to be in the pics.

I ran my 79 Toyota SR5 up and down Crystal Beach through the washouts and surf after Alicia, a year later that truck was jacked up to the max.

Lesson learned the hard way!

I have a good friend that owns a towing service and body shop. I was looking at a car he had for sale. He had repaired collision damage which was paid for by insurance. The Carfax report came up clean with no wrecks reported.

disclaimer - I haven't read through all of the posts but from the pictures my take on it is flood damage. Take a look at the interior, look at the seat mounts, pull back some carpet and take a look at the floorpan on the inside for rust or silt.

Short answer - I would not buy it even at 1/2 of retail price. As mentioned Carfax does not always show what may have happened to the vehicle.

drover

How many people rinse the engine compartment after driving in winter weather?

If it has a hood insulation panel, pull off a few of the retainer clips and see if there is corrosion where the clips hold it against the metal.

An over charging battery can do that.

What ever the reason is. I would stay away from this vehicle. Looks like problems ahead. Hasbeen

Looks minty if you live in the northeast

How does one get road salt on top of the engine during normal driving? Our salt/snow polwing trucks rot in short order, but do not look like that under the hood.

If that is from the battery, it should be fairly localized, and there should be acid spatter on the underside of the hood too. If not, it looks like road salt corrosion and you will see similar evidence on the undercarraige and the exhaust system fasteners.

Yep, Carfax only works if the repairs are reported to car fax.

My buddy had a Chevy Aveo. His son put it through a ditch and ripped the front suspension out from under it and deployed the airbags. Insurance would have totaled the car, but they only carried liability.

He purchased everything he needed to rebuild the vehicle from E-bay. Airbags and sensors, complete front end clip, front suspension. He welded the suspension back onto the car in his garage, and put it back together. Then took it to an alignment shop.

It has a clean title and zero marks against it on Car-fax.

I'm with the "It's been flooded" group. There's probably 2 fuse panels. One in the cab and a 2nd under the hood. Just pull the covers off of them, if there's corrosion, run away fast. Electrical gremlins due to flooding are a never-ending, never-fixed headache unless you completely re-wire the entire car, every system.

Probably run up and down the beach on the Outer Banks.

I think you're right. More to the story. I've never seen rust that bad under the hood on a car with so few miles.

Agreed. Hence my question above. The pics shown, seem to indicate the corrosion is localized.

+4
I'm a Michigan lifer and I have never seen road salt corrosion that looked like that. The spatter on the exhaust shield does not look right. There is something else going on here.

405wcf

Someone already said battery issue. Maybe someone crossed poles and blew up a battery, jumping someone!

Does that southern state near the Gulf of Mexico?

This mystery will never be solved by me. We nixed that car and are pressing on. The dealer insists the car is in great mechanical shape and that condition is a non issue that they'll resolve with a steam clean. I don't waste time on stuff like that. Thanks for all your thoughts. It would be satisfying to know what happened. -tnscouter

Classic example of why people hate car dealers and car salemen. That chit is WAY beyond salvaging by a steam clean.

I would rather someone beat me with a stick than make me go to a car lot.

Good move.

With the hood open so there would be no indication on the underside of the hood.