Whether you own a big truck, SUV, or a fancy car, you definitely want it to accompany you for a long period of time. Vehicle undercoating is not a joke when it comes to vehicle maintenance as it prevents the undercarriage of your riding partner from rust and corrosion.
If your car’s underbelly has to deal with salt or sand regularly, then coating it is a must. However, it’s not always the right choice to go for vehicle undercoating for several reasons.
In this article, we will be discussing vehicle undercoating pros and cons to help you get more knowledge about the matter and help you decide whether you should go for it or not.
Table of Contents
- 1 What Is Vehicle Undercoating?
- 2 Types of Vehicle Undercoating
- 3 Pros of Vehicle Undercoating
- 4 1. Provides an Extra Layer of Protection
- 5 2. Extends the Lifetime of Your Vehicle
- 6 3. Reduces Internal Noise
- 7 4. Self-Applied Facility
- 8 5. Comes with Several Undercoating Methods
- 9 Cons of Vehicle Undercoating
- 10 1. Less Effective If Corrosion Already Exists
- 11 2. Works Well on New Vehicles
- 12 3. Not Impervious to Damage
- 13 4. Need to Reapply Every 3 to 5 Years
- 14 Final Words
What Is Vehicle Undercoating?
In short, vehicle undercoating simply refers to a defensive layer of specific materials that is applied to the underpart of vehicles for protection from mold, moisture, dust, rot, and all the other road scraps.
To offer you a safe driving experience, all the running parts underneath your vehicle must work incoherence.
The undercarriage of your car often gets unnoticed as it’s not usually visible like other body parts of your vehicle. If you want a safe and functional riding experience for a long, you must consider the matter seriously. Otherwise, it can cause mechanical breakdowns in the long run.
Types of Vehicle Undercoating
Based on materials there are several types of vehicle undercoating such as-
- Rubberized
- Polyurethane
- Asphalt
- Wax/paraffin-based undercoating
Not all types will suit your vehicles underneath the coating, so you need to make sure you are choosing the right type for you.
Pros of Vehicle Undercoating
It’s hard to make someone understand what benefits undercoating brings to vehicles. These are the most common advantages that you will get after undercoating your vehicle.
1. Provides an Extra Layer of Protection
In most cases, new cars, SUV’s and trucks come with good protection underneath. But, if you are living in cold climates or coastal areas, having a coated underpart is a great advantage.
It provides your car with an extra layer of protection from rust and corrosion. While driving your car, road debris will come into contact with the undercoating instead of underneath metal components.
Before the coating wears out, you can enjoy years of protection against early corrosion. Not only underneath but also the trailer of your car can be coated the same way using trailer paint.
2. Extends the Lifetime of Your Vehicle
If the undercoating is applied properly, it can extend the lifetime of your vehicle for a significant amount of time.
Vehicle undercoating gives your car rust prevention power and makes your ride safe and functional. When you don’t apply it to your vehicle, then quick rust is the outcome, which will lead to corrosion eventually.
Meanwhile, corrosion affects the integrity of the metal parts of your vehicle, causing mechanical breakdown sooner than expected. Most probably, you wouldn’t like to see your car having such an end this early. So, undercoating would be a smart investment here.
3. Reduces Internal Noise
No one likes to have a noisy ride on their vehicles. Sometimes roads with heavy traffic cause unbearable noise pollution outside. I’m sure that you wouldn’t like to have a noisy interior as well.
Once your car is undercoated, it can reduce the interior noise inside of your vehicle and comparatively provide you with a more peaceful ride.
Many car owners reported that once they have done the undercoating, the interior noise was much less than as it was before.
4. Self-Applied Facility
It is always preferable to go for professional touch for any kind of technical maintenance. But if your budget is tight, you need not worry about it much. With your basic car maintenance skills, you can do the job for yourself.
When you go for professional help to undercoat your vehicle, it might cost you around 1500$. On the contrary, you can cover up the whole within 100$-150$ if you do the job for yourself.
This self-applied facility doesn’t come with smooth finishing like a professional one, but it surely worth the money.
5. Comes with Several Undercoating Methods
When you go for undercoating your vehicle you might come across several methods that are applied for this job. Among them, the electronic method, dripless oil spray and drip oil methods are well known. If you consider the cost then the last one is mostly applied by professionals.
You can also check out the coating paint options whether you want to go for single stage paint or double stage paint. If you are not too much concerned with the look and single stage paint is for you, though it’s old-fashioned but classic. Meanwhile, 2 stage paint gives you the proper color along with a more durable coating.
Cons of Vehicle Undercoating
Despite having some great advantages, undercoating comes with some drawbacks that don’t help that many vehicles of certain conditions.
1. Less Effective If Corrosion Already Exists
Once there is rust underneath, vehicle undercoating won’t give you many effective results. Though the coating will be covering the damage that already took place, the rust inside will continue its job to lead to corrosion.
Undercoating slows down the process, but you must remove the rust first before coating.
2. Works Well on New Vehicles
If your car is already old enough or you bought a used one, then undercoating wouldn’t be a good choice. As coating the underneath of a used or old car requires the removal of all the residue, it will cost you more which is definitely not the best idea.
So, it’s better to apply coating on new cars as they offer premium protection.
For someone who changes his vehicle every 3 to 5 years, then vehicle undercoating is not a good use of your bucks. Because most new cars offer almost 5 years of default underneath protection that you can rely on.
3. Not Impervious to Damage
An undercoating doesn’t always mean protection for a fixed amount of time. Based on your road trips and the things you have to drive against, the lifespan of your coating can be minimal.
If you are bound to drive on dirty areas, gravel roads, it can reduce the quality of this protective layer earlier than expected.
4. Need to Reapply Every 3 to 5 Years
For ongoing protection, you need to make sure you are ready to invest in undercoating your vehicle every 3 to 5 years. Most users can ride their vehicles for 5 years without worrying much once the underpart is coated.
But if you happen to live in coastal areas then you might need to do it every 3 years for best results.
Final Words
So here you are. We are done with our list of advantages and disadvantages of vehicle undercoating.
If you haven’t skipped up to now yet, then we believe you have got a better idea about ‘vehicle undercoating pros and cons’ than earlier.
Based on your vehicle’s condition, now you can decide whether it would be better for it or not.
