Now then fellow s2 owners, i have had mine for 11 years and iam well awere of most of the issues that they have but for some reason i thought the plastic covers at the bottom of the rear wheel arches covered the shape of the body behind it, but no it dosent Honda have created the perfect muck trap.
so to everyone out there that thinks as i did there is no rust on your car think again and make it a priority to remove these covers and check behined them.

 

Keep meaning to do this but too scared at what I might find....:-(

 

I remove and clean mud out 3 or 4 times a year =no rust on both of my Honda"s <there anyway>
Edit: Failure to read thread <I meant arch rubber things>

 

I assume you mean the small plastic covers that are also like a mudflap in front of and in line with the wheel..? Yes, I had those off mine recently and found some rust developing. It's quite an easy area to access and treat though, so it's best to come to terms with it and get stuck into the treatment. As others have pointed out, also have a look on the inside of the wheel arches within 25mm of the lapped joints normally covered by the rubber protection strip, that could be as bad.

I put some POR 15 over that whole area whilst I was doing the crash bar etc. behind the bumper. I used the POR degreaser and rust treatment products before applying the POR 15. Unpleasant job.

I think that a rust treatment and prevention thread is in order, as it's not the kind of job a DIYer wants to get wrong the first time they have to do it. It's quite complex especially if you only have time to treat a small area that's within an area of factory-underseal and you don't have time or resources to do it all.

I also think no-one is more incentivised than the keeper to do this job properly, so perhaps it'll mostly be done on a DIY basis.