My new car's got rust in weird places, like on the
column between the rear door and the cargo area's window,
and it looks like a crack not just surface rust. A
couple of the pillars have these cracks that look like
the car had been hit or who knows what.

Also, the rain gutters on both sides are rusty on
the top and bottom surface where the roof is welded
to the rest of the body.

On the one hand, many of the 145 body parts are
almost or identical to any other 240 wagon, so donor
parts shouldn't be too hard to come by, but on the
other hand, how much will it cost to go through the
car and repair this stuff?

Nothing looks like it will kill the car today or
even this year, but I'm at a point where I can either
start to fix this car up (it needs lots of tlc) or
where I could just buy another 145 that has far
fewer problems but is also far less interesting to
me (the one that's got the wacky rust is a 68 with
the rear vent windows and it has vintage license
plates and I like the early style dashboard, and
so on).

How much would it cost to replace the roof of a
140? Would such a repair be something that would
just rust out from the inside again within a couple
years?

thx,
chris