Please Don't Use Ramen Noodles To Repair Rust Damage On Your Car
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If there's anything TikTok does with a degree of consistency, it's recommending bizarre life hacks often involving using food in decidedly non-food situations. An oddly frequent example of this is using food to repair problems on your car, such as using Coca-Cola to dissolve surface-level rust. While it seems like a viable idea at a casual glance, there are unhelpful factors that make themselves clear upon closer inspection that render the entire notion moot, especially compared to something more sensible like removing spot rust with WD-40.
Another example of a potentially ill-advised life hack involving food and automotive repair is the notion of using ramen noodles to repair rust damage on your car. It's not even the kind of thing that makes sense on paper; how on Earth would you use ramen to remove rust spots or fill in the holes left behind by severe rust damage? As it turns out, it's less a matter of some kind of secret, unknown use for the noodles, and more a matter of using them as a cheap substitute for a proper automotive body filler. Theoretically, with enough handiwork, it could be made to look presentable, but whether or not it would actually stay that way is a separate matter.
This TikTok video uses ramen as a substitute for body filler
In the TikTok video posted by user thetrendforyou, we see a person going through most of the normal motions for cleaning severe rust damage near one of the wheel wells of their vehicle. They start by cordoning off the rusted area with masking tape, then using an air needle scaler to scrape away the rusted surface, leaving a pair of small holes behind. Afterward, they use a sand blaster and chisel to chip away at any remaining rust, then apply a rust neutralizer to halt any further corrosion.
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This is all correct rust removal procedure, but after applying the neutralizer, things take a left turn when the user opens a packet of solid ramen noodles. The user breaks up the block of noodles, then crams the various bits into the two holes left over from the rust removal. They then use a tube of super-glue to bond the chunks to the car's frame, then cover both the noodles and the hole with a spachtel repair agent. After it dries, they sand down the surface, repaint it, wash it, and sand it down again before driving away.
Reddit users discussing similar videos involving using noodles for car repairs speculate that the noodles are merely meant to serve as a cheap substitute for automotive filler, with the super-glue acting as a resin to hold everything in place. As one user notes, we never see much beyond the car driving away in these videos, so it's anyone's guess how long this "fix" will actually hold.
Use proper automotive body filler to repair rust holes
The strange thing about this TikTok video is that, for the most part, the user follows all of the proper steps for automotive rust removal, which are largely the same as those for removing rust from a project car without welding. The only outlier in the process is the ramen, presumably either as a cost-cutting measure or just to see if it can be done.
If you're already going that far into automotive rust removal, you might as well just forget the ramen and do things properly. Instead of trying to cram noodles into the holes left over from rust removal, you should use a proper automotive body filler. You can get a tub of all-purpose automotive body filler on Amazon for around $13, and use it in much the same way that TikTok user used the noodles. Just clean the rust patch off of your car with a scraper and sandpaper, apply a rust neutralizer, which you can also get on Amazon, and then fill the holes with the body filler. Afterward, add an epoxy primer to bond everything together, sand down the excess, and repaint the spot.
It's effectively the same fix, just without the risk of the noodles and glue falling apart and leaving a big hole in the side of your car.