Rust......

[325icoupe]

Hi
Having thought my car was very solid I have just noticed some rust and was wondering if any of you guys had experiance with rust in the same area.
I decided as it was a nice day to actually test to see if my sunroof works, the good news is it does, the bad news was that i found some flaskes of rust in the recess where the sunroof sits, after a quick look i noticed that it was coming from near the drainage holes, the ones i believe run inside the A-pillar. So deciding to look at the A-pillar with the doors open i have noticed they are rusting - quite possibly inside to out. Anyone else had the car rust around this area? Is it easy, hard, impossible to sort?
Thanks
James

[kevin316i]

Not sure if my experience is similar to yours, but on my new E30 purchase I have found rust on the inside of where the A-pillar meets the panel under the front windscreen. The rust occurs on the inside on both sides. It looks like it was repaired with some body filler and re-sprayed, so the rust must have come through from the inside.

It can be seen when you remove the 2 plastic grills on the panel under the windscreen, with the aid of a small mirror.

[Brianmoooore]

kevin316i's experience of rust is very common. There shoulb be a very large blob of sealant inside the A pillars where the rust appears, and my theory is that the sealant shrinks with age and pulls away from the inside of the A pillar, leaving small gaps which draw in water by cappilary action, which then quickly rusts through the pillar.
325icoupe - are you sure the rust flakes aren't falling down from the underside of the sunroof hatch? Severe rusting there is very common, because of a bad design with two layers of metal with no sealant between them.
The guides at the back of the fabric part of the sunroof tend to rust as well.

[325icoupe]

There may be rust coming from the underside of the sunroof aswell lol. But the rust I tried to describe (probably very badly, unfortunatly i don't currently have a digital camera) can be seen when you open the doors of the car. It is between the 'gutter' that runs along the the roof and down the A-pillar and the rubber door seal. It would be nice if it was just surface rust and could be rubber down and removed but i think it may be from between the panels.