I quite like the idea of wax oil on the underside of my late 90s van to slow the onset of rust.

Has anyone done this?

Does it smell once it’s done? I’m allergic to god knows how many things and a funny lingering smell from the oil would really be shooting myself in the foot.

Any other downsides?

Just had it done and no wiff at all.

It worked a treat on my mini, BUT never leave the waxoil drum almost empty next to the gas boiler in the utility room and open it the next morning to see how the pump bit works. 20 years later and my head, arms and torso are still rust free.

I used to get my classic vw s waxoiled. Messy job so i got a garage to do it, silk mill garage galgate if u r close. It did smell in thegarage a bit, plus it melts in the heat. He did the insides of doors, sills too.

When they were mot d the inspectors all commented how clean they were underneath. No rust all in a then 30 year old car.

Well worth doing, especially on a 90s van, best with a mix of diesel and wax oil warmed up and put on to a clean dry vehicle. Might smell a bit but not a bad smell and will be gone in a day or two.

I had my truck dinitrol treated a year ago. It still smells of it now. Not when you’re driving but walking past on the drive. Whether that will bother you I guess is a personal thing.

Diesel on underside is a bad idea if you like motorcyclists.

Waxoyl doesn’t smell. Not very effective though imo.

Ditrinol much more resistant to abrasion chips and wetting out. If water gets under the dried cracked wax it will fester away.

My next underseal a getting done with wheel arch refinement (w.a.r)

As per above – Waxoyl is the Hammerite of the wax world i.e. – crap.
It is cheap however and gives you a nice smug feeling when it’s first applied and looking nice and black. Look again in a years time and the rust patches will have broken through.
Use Dinitrol or POR15

RustyNissanPrairie – Member
gives you a nice smug feeling when it’s first applied and looking nice and black

Waxoyl isn’t underseal – it’s an rust inhibitor that’s supposed to prevent crevice corrosion you put in the cavities – or at least it was. Why would you put wax on the outside? It’ll just wear off in minutes surely?

Is this some brand creep?

If I was to do it again I’d dinitrol all the cavities and por 15 the chassis and bedliner the underside of the shell.

Flexible under seal may be good at preventing rust but it makes the vehicle a a bit of a saga to work on.

I’ve messed around lots with Waxoyle as I used to own a 1986 Land Rover with an alloy body bolted onto a complex, hollow-rail mild steel chassis, the perfect rust trap. It’s just wax dissolved in a light oil like paraffin or odourless kerosine, exactly the same as Nikwax and in fact what I have left over I use for waxing my waxy shoes and walking boots. The solvent evaporates and leaves wax behind but unfortunately the blend is such that at less than very warm temperatures it solidifies so if you’re going to spray it, do it on a warm day and cover the ground with a tarp and wear a mask, otherwise you’ll be inhaling the fine spray, which can’t be good for your lungs. In cold weather it’s a ball-ache because the stuff keeps solidifying in the tube and nozzle.

Does it work? Well it makes water bead up on the surface and perhaps it slows down the rusting process but rust never rests and if you drive a rust-prone vehicle like a Landy on wet salty roads you’ll be able to smell the sharp battery-like odour of electrochemical oxidation afterwards under the vehicle and in the wheel arches. Get the black coloured version and it will hide a multitude of sins but the effect of Waxoyle is so difficult to measure that I reckon you’re better off avoiding salted roads, keeping the underneath clean and parking on a hard surface under a car port where it’s dry but there’s lots of air movement. Actually, come to think of it, if I ever own another Landy I will spray the underneath with diesel because that also evaporates leaving wax behind, as you’ll see if you glance down at the garage forecourt. It evaporates slowly and is very mobile so should spread and penetrate well into all the nooks and crannies before slowly drying.

POR15 is an amazing paint but only sticks to rust, on a clean painted surface it forms a nice hard film then just peels off. Buy a small tin because it’s true what it says on the label; once you’ve opened and closed the tin you’ll never get it open a second time. Frost Restoration is a good source of these magic liquids.

I had my Landy done from new – smelt for a day or two and then never noticed it again. It never dripped any on a warm day either. Had it done by a professional company in Manchester area. Dunno how effective it was long term as sold it since, but they recommended an annual touch up…

That means an annual respray. My experience of it was that it did promote some beading but it didn’t completely prevent the surface from getting wet and it did seem to disappear as time went by.

If you want a second-hand Landy with a superb chassis go to anywhere on the African highveldt like Johannesburg where it’s mostly bone dry and there’s never any salt on the roads. Steering wheel on the right as well.

Waxoyl does smell. It stinks, but the smell does wear off. I used it on an old Porsche 944 and sprayed it into the box sill cavity which is a known moisture trap and rust point on 944’s. The box sill is used as part of the cabin ventilation system on a 944 so air is circulated through it and for a few weeks after the smell was pretty rank. As far as the effectiveness of waxoyl, it’s fine and was still there doung its job after 6 years of my ownership of the 944, but you have to consider where to use it. I wouldn’t use it on the underside of the car. It doesn’t set and stays a thick viscous fluid so not suitable or most effective for that area. That is exposed to wind, hard debris and direct water impingement. I would personally use proper underseal for underneath a car, that’s the purpose of under seal and you should use the correct product for the job. But waxoyl is fine and perfectly effective in areas not exposed to the outside.

Summing up, it sounds like wax oil (waxoyl?) is odour free but requires annual maintenance or will be useless, and dinitrol is better but it smells..? Anything out there that’s the best of both worlds?

How about more modern underseal stuff, does that smell?

If you’re REALLY REALLY sensitive to smell then you’ll smell these products. You know that general old car smell, that’s what it’s like. They’re all made of hydrocarbons with a volatile hydrocarbon elements that gives it enough viscosity to go on and then evaporates. There will be a residual smell for years. Those of us accustomed to driving around in old crap get used to it. 😉

What van is it? I’ve had several 80s and a couple of 90s VWs. The underseal was in pretty good condition. In order to do it properly you have to strip the old factory stuff of and that is a JOB. The rust that tends to kill vans appear around the seams on the body and the inner wings etc.

Having gone through the cost and hassle of doing it, my preference would be to POR15 specific areas and just keep the rest dry and ventilated.

Any sealant will smell until the carrier evaporates. I remember the old days of Ziebart – what a failure that was – and how it smelled on a new car.

What van is it?

VW T4 800 special 1997. Would that originally have had a coating of something? I haven’t even checked *blush*

I still go with the warmed up wax oil diesel mix. We have a 97 Vito, rust free! Sprayed it twice in ten years. A 110 and a Shogun both looking good underneath. All cars in the house unless relatively new get zapped with it. Bikes get ACF and planes get LPS3.

Underneath a T4 will have a pretty good factory coating. Check what you have first, it might be in good condition.

I’d even suggest that spraying something in a solvent might soften and damage the factory coating.

If the factory underseal coating is not compromised at all then adding a layer of Waxoyl or similar wont be doing anything and is just a waste of time and money. There might be some benefit in using it on things like exposed metal structural members, like beams or bracing brackets, but they are usually made of a material that, though will get a thin layer of surface rust that doesn’t look nice aesthetically, is perfectly fine structurally and the surface rust sort of acts like a corrosion protection layer and doesn’t get any worse, well not for many many years or a decade or two.

I used waxoyl for cavities within the body of the car that often acted as water traps where corrosion could take hold and rust from the inside out. The Waxoyl just sits there or adheres to a vertical panel and protects the surface from moisture. In these cases the moisture often comes from condensation that gathers and drips down and gathers somewhere on a seam weld or something, so the waxoyl gets in there and the water sits harmlessly on that, or the condensation doesn’t form at all.

By the way, just so we’re talking he same thing and since waxoyl is a trade name which many products sit under these days so we could all be talking about different products. When I think of waxoyl I think if the sludgy stiff you spray or paint that never sets and just covers the applied area.

Factory underseal can be as bad as it gets older. It splits in areas prone to flexing and let’s water in trapping it.

Don’t assume because it’s factory underseal ed it will be fine.

One of my tasks is to remove the factory underseal on my iveco which has started to crack and split and I see the future involving welding if I don’t act now.

Wobbli – two above is spot on!

I remember the old days of Ziebart – what a failure that was – and how it smelled on a new car.

And yet I had customer with a 1972 T2 camper that had the Ziebart sticker on the door shut. The only VW that never needed any welding ever – well until the front panel rotted out below the windscreen.
Anyway OP, waxoyl great for cavities, pants for floors. No smell after a couple of months.

Well I checked the underside. About 50 percent of the factory coating remains. What to do?

My vw cabrio was ziebarted at the factory. On the sales receipt in 1979 the car cost 6k, the ziebart 600 gbp. It was v expensive option.

Anyway it never saw the rain so was mint, best thing was i bought it in 2000 all the channels were accessable due to ziebarting. Garage stuck the probe in all sills and channels and blasted in the waxoyle.

In my ownership it never saw he rain so cannot comment on effectiveness. I am stillmin touch with the new owner and he loves it, keeps sending me pics of my old car.

Boohoo….our beloved 1986 Landy Went to a bloke who had no mechanical sympathy at all and told me “I just want something to run into the ground”. Judging from the increasingly dire MOT reports he’s just about succeeded. I feel like crying.

Well I checked the underside. About 50 percent of the factory coating remains. What to do?

Unless you can be bothered to strip the whole lot off I’d ‘waxoyl’ inside the sills, and the seams and hose the underneath twice a week in winter.

Should see you through til they ban diesels.

Just to follow up in case anyone wonders about the allergy thing.

I got it waxoyl’d (asking them not to do anything inside the cab). Very slight waxy smell is perceptible but it doesn’t bother me at all despite the fact I often have sneezing fits caused by pollen, dust, dairy and inconsiderate folk like myself who still drive diesels.