I'm now at almost a year of happy MR2 ownership.

The car has been great.

Used in all weathers and never once let me down, including a couple of long road trips.

I've also really enjoyed the benefit of getting help from such a great bunch of people both here and on the other forums.

It's made owning and working on the car a total delight.

Yesterday I gave the car a really good wash.

The first decent one for a few months as the sun was shining and the temperature was above freezing.

As I made my way around the car I noticed more and more little signs of rust appearing.

Nothing too crazy, but rubbing back to metal and painting over is just like painting the forth rail bridge

- I'd be doing it every year and I just dont have the time! The main culprits are the rear arches

(strangely one has one particuarly bad spot of rust and the other is perfect!) and the front wings, but there are smalls spots in a number of places.

The car is due its MOT in a few weeks time so I'm going to wait until I have the outcome of that before deciding what to do.

If I had the money

(and it was a manual) I'd consider replacing the arches, putting fibre glass front wings on and having a full respray but it just seems over kill for what is a cheap car.

For what that would cost I could sell and buy the nice Super Edition Supercharger thats still up for sale I think!

So just looking for ideas of what level people have taken their cars to in a cost effective way? I HATE the idea of watching the car rust to a slow death over the next few years and I know the more rust appears the less I will drive it.

My heart says keep spending the money, but my head says get a couple more good years out of it and then move on.

What should I do?