body metal under gas cap rusting out

It seems that in Ford's dyer wisdom, they manufacture a vehicle and put it on the market with parts that have short life expiry date. All the body is relatively rust free, as the rest of the recalls, rear axle, rear seat safety locks and other things that have rusted and been repaired or replaced by Ford Recalls. except the left rear fender(dog leg) below the gas flap which is gradually eating up the rear left fender of the vehicle. It seem that in their wisdom, they allowed water to drain from the gas flap into the body panel , but forgot to leave a way for the water to get out. Now, it is gradually eating itself to the scrap pile. I have had a 2001 Winstar for 13 years, and it too had 150000 K on it when I go t rid of it, AND, it did not have one spot of rust on the body. I think I should have got rid of the 2004 and kept the 2001.

It seems that Ford is admitting their problems, and eventually correcting some of them. I just hope they fix the other problems before my FREESTAR rusts itself into the ground.................... AL

We have had this Freestar since 2007, and it is in my estimation, on the low mileage side. It started to show a few rust blisters a couple years ago, but now it is getting progressively worse. It seem that there is a panel below the gas fill door that traps water in between the panels. It seems to be a problem with this year and model as I have seen a lot of them with the same rust. It seems that Ford has repaired rust out in the back wheel wells and the front and rear frame as well. I am just wondering if Ford has any recalls for the body rust as they did for the rear well wells and the lock up for the second row seats. Looking for more info . Thanks......................

I love this van and I am still paying for it...I have really never had any problems other than this rust and I've seen it in the same place on other freestar vans...first it was just a bubble then 2bubbles then 3 bubbles than the little hole than it just started gettin bigger and bigger and now it's thru the first layer of metal and i sprayed stop rust on it and it seems to have slowed it down but it needs to get fixed..I have been searching online for other freestar rust problems for a year and finally a friend told me about the NHTSA getting involved finally ..only they are looking into the 3rd row seat latchs rusting out and now i'm worried about that...i keep my car clean and wash it aleast once a week in the winter because of the salt and i don't have a garage yet so the undercarriage gets washed to keep the rusting down..nowhere else is it rusting that i can see only in one spot..right behind the driver side slider door at the bottom corner of the wheel well underneath the gas cap door ..or picture this gas cap filler door straight down to bottom of the van the wheel well is rusted thur the metal ..other areas of the van don't have that, the other side doesn't look like that and it just ticks me off that ford won't fix this problem and that i have to scrap up the money to get it fixed myself... i could see if the van had rust all over it but it's just that one spot..something doesn't smell right to me..so i have been looking at the puter every now and again seein if ford is doing something about this..is there any hope????body work is expensive and i'm on a fixed income so i don't have money laying around to fix it.thanks for listening..