Conrad Hoffman

Well, I saw the bubbling paint under the center brake light maybe a year ago, and the weather is finally good, so I got out the die grinder and had at it. The design is just plain incompetent. The brake light seals on the far inside surface, so every time the thing gets wet, the water wicks in around the light and sits there, eventually getting at the metal and working its way back out. I'll treat it with a conversion coating then prime and paint it. It'll be ugly, but I'm thinking of sealing the light to the metal with RTV right around the outer perimeter because that's where the seal should have been to begin with.

The edges of the rear wheel wells are also showing signs of a problem, so they're next. I'm also seeing rusty door hinges and their hardware, something that usually stays clean forever. The car has 68000 miles and I consider this lousy rust resistance. Once one starts seeing this sort of thing on a light gage body like the Mazda, the cars days are numbered, a few more years at best.

As much as I liked the car when new, I'll never buy another Mazda. Component quality has been poor, reliability has been poor and now it appears durability is poor.

Anyway, if you see even the slightest paint bubble, get after it immediately as it will get worse fast. Even if all you can do is sand it out, treat it with a conversion coating, and spray it with mismatched enamel, that will slow the progress until you can do it right. It's a lot harder to repair metal that isn't there. :-(