For those with experience, please post where "stuff" accumulates. "Stuff" holds moisture, and moisture holds road salt. So keeping it clean reduces corrosion. When I was getting my new tires, I found a place (two actually). Just in front of the rear wheel on each side, in the wheel well right down at the bottom, there is a small square hole (perhaps 2" square). When I peered in there I found gravel. After only 3 months of summer driving! Just washed the car, and it's easy to direct a stream of water in there to clean it out.
When washing open the front doors and squirt water into the front fenders along the outside of the door, not from inside, you don't want wet seats. This area often acumulates dirt and leaves from the vent drains on most cars. It also gets a lot of road dirt that sneaks around the inner guard.
Things that are attached to your car and close to the ground... like the front license plate holder. It's a small effort to take that off once or twice a year if you hand-wash, and I always find more "stuff" accumulated there than I would like. Wheel wells of course, and mud guards if you have them. I like to give that area special attention when rotating tires. (Actually, in honor of our "English" speaking counterparts, I propose a new spelling of "tiyres" )
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(David Beale @ Oct 24 2007, 11:28 PM) [snapback]530073[/snapback]</div> That is the best - or worst depending on your perspective - place for collecting junk in a Prius. Also the rear most section of the rear wheelwells, there is a lip that also collects sand/mud. The inner lip of the rear wheelwell that runs all the way around the inside - ditto. The plastic air fairings underneath the passenger seat area seem to like collecting sand and small stones. I only used to drive my Prius 4.5 km down a gravel sideroad to my hobby farm - and I don't even do that anymore since I got the FJ - yet I was surprised at what collects in the rear wheelwells at the place you mentioned. After cleaning everything this summer, I used an LED flashlight and detected the beginning of corrosion on that lip I mentioned, the one at the rear of the rear wheelwell. I got a couple of cans of Fluid Film and liberally sprayed everything down. http://www.eurekafluidfilm.com/
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(David Beale @ Oct 24 2007, 09:28 PM) [snapback]530073[/snapback]</div> Try the back of the rear wheel. Shoot water above the mudguard and tell me how muddy the water is. Then go to the rear skirt and look underneath. Find a small hole and shoot water up there. Now tell me how muddy the water is.
