Hey all,
I'm in the market for an Express conversion van, and found one with all the specs I was looking for at a good price. It is an older van, though, 2005 with 100k miles. It's been fairly meticulously serviced for the past decade at least. I'm 400 miles away, though, so I had the seller send some photos and this is what I got of the underbody. The rest looks immaculate, including bottoms of door panels, rocker panels. There is some surface rust along the topper rim, but I was considering a full repaint anyway. I just don't want this thing to be a money pit - it spend some time in Georgia and is currently in Indiana, I'm in Wisconsin, so road salts aren't going to get any better.

Thanks for your time and expertise, I'm no gearhead so I need some help!

 

I don't see anything structurally unsound. Down here in North Florida it would be considered rusty but in the rust belt it's probably about as good as you're going to get. Looks like it can still be worked on for now. A yearly treatment of https://www.fluid-film.com/ would greatly slow down the damage.

Low miles for the year so that's probably pretty good. Looks like a leak in the AC system but that can be fixed. At least it'll be easy to find.

 

Thanks so much for your time and expertise! That's reassuring and Fluid Film looks like a great treatment for all my vehicles, so thanks for the tip! Hope you have a great day

 

No problem. I've not used the Fluidfilm my self as we don't need it down here. I'm on a few other vehicle forums and the people up north swear by it. I'm on a very busy forum for Chrysler minivans 2001-2007 generation (also bad for rust) and a lot of those guys have used it to keep their vans in good shape through the salt. I'm not sure how often they apply it though.

If you're willing to get a van from farther away you can look for one farther south. Down here those rusty areas would still have the factory paint and the and the nuts and bolts would look like new.

 

Green leaky line- does that go to a rear heater system? Should be an eassy enough line to change.

 

Looks like a line going to the rear HVAC. Probably heater hose but I 'm not sure. Mine is setup a little differently. That's certainly not Dex-Cool though. That's refrigerant from the AC system. They either use a high pressure rubber section in the AC line or the AC line is above it and dripping down. My guess would be a leak in the AC line dripping down onto the heater hose. It'll be obvious once someone sticks their head under there.

 

I’ve been using Fluid Film treatments on both my vehicles since 2018. It works amazingly well even here in the Buffalo, NY area salt belt.
Last year I switched to WoolWax, a nearly identical product, just because there is a shop much closer to where I live using it now. Either one is great.