rust on rear door sill near b pillar catch
 

hi, i am a rotary newbie and just got my 8 last thursday, everything is great, the car is very tidy for 2004. the only thing i have noticed are two rust marks where the rear doors close on the bottom sill.

i have read on here that it is a common fault on earlier models, but there is nt much info on fixes.
i was wondering if anyone did an easy fix themselves, i have taken a quick look at it, slight paint bubbling around the rust mark which is about the width of the rear door seal and 1/2 inch long.

i was just wondering what is the best option, i do have a year's warranty for this car, didn't buy it from a mazda dealer.

i haven't spoken to the dealership i got it from yet, as i thought if i could clean off the surface rust and prime and touch up paint the area, it may be easier/quicker.

i would have to leave the car into the dealership and waste days getting them to do it, no car etc.

just a question to see who else has had this problem and what was the best way to fix it.

do mazda have a paint warranty for this car, not the 3 year warranty, but a paint warranty and is this fault covered under the warranty?

i am in the uk, so would any mazda dealer cover this under the mazda paint warranty?

anyhelp would be great as i am a bit disappointed with this, spoils the car a bit.

took my mum out to the shops to let her see what it was like and she thought it was a lovely car, winning blue with a stainless steel exhaust, not sure what make but sounds great lol.

thanks

doesnt mazda have a lifetime rust warranty?

This is all I could find on google

"3 year paint warranty and twelve year no perforation body warranty."

If you can post some pics

i have some rust sports on my door sill near the rear 1/2 doors let me know if mazda is doin anything about this my car only has 52k miles

hi

well i thought as much, car is a 2004, so paint warranty out.
i basically got some fine sand paper and carefully rubbed the surface rust off.
i have only rubbed down the drivers side chips, as it was worse than the passenger side, my car is right hand drive.

i rubbed down to the metal as best as i could, then dabbed some touch up primer paint on, dried with an old air dryer, then used the blue touch up paint to finish off.

damm rain started to spit as we say, but my prayers for it not to rain were answered and i was able to build up the paint and speed up drying with the hair dryer.

i tested closing the door and opening and seems ok, i did notice small chips running in a line where the bottom rubber of the rear doors sits against the sill when the door is closed.

i did look this problem up and another guy had the same trouble. his dealer said its because of the b pillar being the rear door and its common, alot of force when closing must be very hard on the paint there.

another guy basically fixed it himself and one other guy got his fixed by the dealer.

i think its a common problem if you are opening your rear doors alot and with them shuddering when you close your front doors, this is causing the paint to somehow chip, water on the rubber then starts to corrode the metal.

so the answer is to always wipe down the sills after rain and washing.

my dad told me it was the same in the 60's when he bought a brand new mini, and happens to cars, you would think rust on a car would be old news by todays standards.

even my mx3 is down to some surface rust and primer where the door rubber sits against the sill, its a 92.

i think mazda did recognise it as a tsb, and have some fix for it, but one guy that had this problem used some of that plastic you see on the back wheel arches, or for stopping chips on front bumpers/bonnets/hoods. he put it over the paint along the sill, to stop it chiping etc in the future.

just one of those things i guess, i found it strange that mazda put this plastic protection on the corner edge of the sill of the rear doors and back wheel arch but not where the rubber sits against the sill????

anyways, i am waiting till better weather then smooth down the fix and touch it up again and the small chips running along the rest of the sill, do the passenger side and just keep an eye on it.

if they had made the sill aluminium too, we'd be ok i guess. just looks bad on such a cool car.

i will take a pic of the passenger side one when i go to fix it to show you all what it looks like.

just spent this afternoon using zymol polish wax to shine her up, looking great if i may say so myself.

cheers

There WAS a TSB on this posted over at the Rosenthal Mazda website, but they recently rebuilt the entire site and it's no longer there. If you put a request up for Tommy in this thread --> https://www.rx8club.com/rosenthal-mazda-68/service-bulletins-135904/ he can probably get it re-added. The TSB involved repairing the area and then placing plastic film over the sites to protect them. I tried to get this repaired some time ago, told the service department exactly where the spots were, and they told me they "couldn't locate them". Yeah. Right.

this will be taken care off by mazda no matter age off vehicle, its a construction-flaud.
Everyone should check it out, mine is going in for this next week, along with a couple of others.

It would normally not be under warranty but since this happens to most rx8's so..

They will sand it down and repaint it and then lay some transparent "plastic" over the troubled area.

hi

well i just got my 8 back today and mazda under the 6 year perforation warranty paid for the rusted area on the sill to be repainted and only that area!

the bodyshop guy told me that he had told them the whole sill needed repainting but they only wanted the area in the photos repainted. they also told him there was no stone guard type plastic to put over the sills so they put some on for me.

this will prevent it happening again as the rear door rubs against the sill and wears the paint off causing moisture to get in and start rust etc.

but the good news is all you have to do is ring your mazda dealership, who will advise you to go to their bodyshop people. they will take photos of the sills and your car's reg etc for identity reasons i suppose and then send these off to mazda. next if mazda agree to the work, they usually give you 30 days to have the work carried out. therefore you just arrange a date with the bodyshop and let them take care of it.

it looks great i must say and a professional job was done. only thing i had to do was 'click' the black sill covers with the silver rx8 logo down more. the guy must have just pushed the ends down only.

therefore they will cover this on the perforation warranty but for me a uk spec car, its only 6 years, so if you are having this problem and your car is under 6 years which it will be, then you should be ok. just start with the mazda dealership and take it from there. thought the paint only that area was a bit of a joke but i suppose they must be getting alot of this and are trying to save money lol. also they put plastic stone guard on the rear wheel arches behind the rear doors but none on the sill???

i'm glad its sorted and happy my 8 is back.