Has anybody ever found some add on trim elements that goes around the edge of the wheel wells. I've seen these in chrome on mercedes for example.... I think they're sometimes called "fender flares". Anybody have a line on them?

Also... has anybody had some experience with creative patching of good sized lower area rust areas with plastic parts or moulding elements borrowed from other makes/models? I have a solid 240 in good mechanical order, but the wintery region I'm in tends to rust out lower elements of the cars around the wheel wells especially. I don't care too much if it looks kind of funky if it slows down the current rotting until i can have some pro bodywork done.

While I'm on the topic of rust... is there any methods of guarding against this? It seems like I would try to stay on top of it if I had bought a new car in this new region that I'm in, but it seems a lot of people just let it go... until it's probably too expensive to fix with body-work. Seems like it would be good to just try to foil it before it gets too far. I know that one can buy spray on undercoating from a can for example. That's just me though... preventative maintenance before things "snowball".

So yah... I'm a hardcore winter-weather newbie... any suggestions?