Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS) was used to study coated Al alloys during long-term exposure in 5 wt% NaCl solution. The breakpoint frequency extracted from Bode plots allows the determination of the electrochemically active area of the sample. It shifts from low to high frequency with increasing exposure time due to the enlargement of the active area. The appearance of a high breakpoint frequency f(h), usually in the range of 10(2) to 10(3) Hz, occurred after a certain exposure time associated with a sharp drop of open circuit potential and low frequency impedance, and was accompanied by the visual initiation of corrosion under the coating. The incubation time before fh appears can be used as a criterion to evaluate the performance of chromate primer combined with different surface pretreatments. Optical profilometry analysis was conducted to determine the corroded area of coated sample after long-term exposure. The corroded area of one coating system was very close to, but that of another coating system was much higher than, the electrochemically active area estimated by the breakpoint frequency method, due to the different extent of attack. This indicates that the breakpoint frequency may be only valid for the determination of defect area during the initiation of attack, but probably not for the propagation to large regions of attack. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.