The two arms on each side an another part, I forget which. I'll post up the details once I get it in there.

Your dealer's an idiot If it's the tie rod arms. those are raw cast iron parts. They surface rust naturally as any cast part will (like brake rotors) and the new ones will too, unless painted or finished in some way....Betcha Nissan kicks that warrantly claim back, though it'll be no skin off your back... You're not really accomplishing anything by replacing those..

Here's a pic of some brand new ones when my car had a few hundred miles on it:
http://images44.fotki.com/v1468/phot...MG_1458-vi.jpg

I would take to the dealer so is documented in your car records for future reference.

If you fix it on your own then it might become a bigger issue later on. Let them handle it, it is under warranty. ;)

NOTE: Oops, didn't read your post before I wrote this one. Glad the dealer is taking care of it.

It's not the tie rod arms. I posted pictures of the rust at the beginning of the thread of the parts that are rusted.

Here they are again.

http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/j..._tin/rust2.jpg

http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/j..._tin/rust1.jpg

http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/j...g_tin/rust.jpg

Ah...OK..Ready-fire-aim, sorry! I'll still be amazed if Nissan reimburses the dealer for that. Looks like wear and tear to me. As I mentioned earlier, the finish quality under the car isn't so good, but the warranty, at least as written, doesn't cover it... The new parts are going to have the same poor paint quality. Good luck.

Mod - I would hope even the absolute worst dealer mechanic will have at least looked under enough cars to know where rust is, and is not, normal :rolleyes:

Huh? Have you looked under yours? Mine has a few small places at the leading edges of those pieces where the lousy paint has cracked and slight rust has started and I live in the south, have less than 5K on the car and rarely drive in the rain. I wasn't kidding when I said the undercarriage finish quality sucks so yeah, it's normal for THIS car. The quality of paint on everything under the car is marginal, so after a little sandblasting, it's all gonna rust. If you think Nissan is gonna replace all this on every car, you're crazy as Warranty specifically excludes this. The only fix is to refinish or recoat with a more durable finish material like some of the stuff Eastwood sells for this purpose or get the car undercoated... Wait til you see the undercarriages of the northern and midwestern cars after this first winter....It isn't gonna be pretty...

I'm in Chicago. Nissan will take a look at my car next Saturday. If they don't do anything, I'm having a local guy 'finish' the entire undercarriage the following week.

Smart move...I'm probably going to do mine too in selective locations. Having a lift, I get to ponder my undercarriage more than most here...

I really didn't think it was a big deal or I would have taken it in months ago. I had the oil changed and told them to take a look, so his reaction was surprising. I thought they'd say it's normal and superficial, but he said "it looks like a part of a rusted 1930s Power Wagon."

If you do have the undercarriage coated, please report back to us whether or not the coating diminishes road noise too. Just curious...

Will do but doubt it will help with noise. I wouldn't coat everything, just the metal parts with rust.

damn, now you guys got me wandering what mine looks like. bRb!!!!!!!!

FWIW this was the service manager, not just a tech, so I'm sure he thought it was a problem. He did say that it was rusted much more on top of those arms, an area that I could not see from just crawling underneath.

Now the real question is: Will I have to have the control arms completely removed to condition and coat them? Ugh...this is already starting to sound like a headache. Probably just have to pay someone to deal with it, unless the control arms are cheaper to just replace in a couple years than conditioning and coating them.

Why not take it in, maybe they'll just replace yours too.

Definitely taking it in next Saturday. But whether they replace it or not, I'll have to coat the problem areas. So I'm wondering if I can just coat what I see, or if the entire parts need coating. Sounds like the latter.

POR15 as said already will end all your rust problems.

That stuff does work well, but we shouldn't have to use it on a year old car with 8k on it.

Imagine the rust underneath that you can't see!!! Up here in the Great White North lots of folks get undercoating before they take delivery or shortly thereafter. I have used Krown rustproofing on my '03 Sportrac since new. The under carriage and body panels are still like new. The downside is this stuff is messy and it seeps out for days after each annual treatment.

I will try and take detailed pics of the parts once they are removed. It will be a week or two.

Okay so it when in this week. The rust wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, but still pretty bad for a car with 9k miles on it. These were taken with my phone so the resolution isn't that great.

http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/j...g_tin/rack.jpg

http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/j...in/rustnew.jpg

http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/j...n/rustnew1.jpg

http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/j...n/rustnew2.jpg

As compared to...? Rust is time based not mileage based. Do you park your car in a damp area or live on the coast? A good quality rustproofing product should inhibit the rust your Z is experiencing.

Compared to any car. Aside from the desert southwest most of us experience rain and damp conditions. The rest of the car is perfect, these two are the only rusty parts.