‘Mobile mechanic’ thinks he’s found the perfect fix for rust holes in his van, but his solution is actually worse than the problem

A man went viral on Facebook after someone filmed him using spray foam to fix rust holes on his work van. The video was posted by Just Rolled In, and it shows the neighbor trying to patch up damaged spots on his vehicle. But experts say this method actually makes things worse instead of better.

According to Motor 1, the video shows the neighbor working on a Chevrolet Express van without knowing he was being filmed. “This neighbor was caught using spray foam to repair rust holes on the sides of his work van,” the person recording says in the video. You can see the man pushing foam into the rusty areas on the side of the van like it’s a normal repair job. So far, the video has gotten over 655,000 views.

The person who made the Facebook reel also said the neighbor “used to claim he was a mobile mechanic,” which made people question whether he really knew what he was doing. But not everyone thought it was okay to film him without asking first.

This repair method will cost him way more in the long run

Spray foam might look like an easy solution for rust holes, but it causes bigger issues later on. The biggest problem is that foam keeps water trapped against the metal. When that happens, the rust doesn’t stop. 

It actually gets worse and spreads under the foam where nobody can see it. The foam also doesn’t make the metal any stronger. It just covers up what’s wrong without really fixing anything. This kind of repair usually costs way more money to fix later. 

That’s because the rust keeps eating away at the metal while it’s hidden under the foam. This is a lot like when an auto repair shop refuses to return a customer’s car over payment disputes. Both situations show how vehicle problems can get much worse when they’re not handled the right way from the start.

Fixing rust the right way means cutting out all the damaged metal completely. You have to remove the bad parts, clean up the area around it, weld in new metal pieces, and then add filler and paint. It takes more work and time, but it’s the only real way to stop rust from spreading and doing more damage.

Some people in the comments stood up for the neighbor. They said mobile mechanics don’t usually do body work anyway. “Body tech and auto tech are very different. We dont touch body work, thats its own field,” one person wrote. They also pointed out that “even new vehicles use spray foam inside the panels, thats how they make it silent and insulated.”

But someone else didn’t agree. “This is body work though, and he don’t have to know sht about it,” they said. Another person thought the whole thing was blown out of proportion, writing that the man was “far from caught he was chilling in his driveway trying to make his van look better for his business I’m assuming or got tired of looking at rust.” 

Some people felt the foam fix was good enough for now, but others said taking shortcuts on vehicle repairs can lead to bad results just like other careless vehicle behavior, such as hit and run incidents where drivers speed off after causing damage.