Bought new pickup should I get it undercoated ?

[nyone]

Yes the body has been made of mostly aluminum since 2015 but the frame is still made with mostly steel.

Aluminum corrodes nearly as bad as steel with road salt.

If you live in the rust belt get it under coated with something like fluid film, wool wax or NH oil undercoating.

I'm a former municipality fleet mechanic and no amount of washing can keep the rust totally at bay.

 

[TIMMYDUCK]

That is very true .

My best friend bought a 55 gallon drum years ago and built an application pit .

All our vehicles get treated twice a year .

We feel that it has been a very good return on investment .

How to Save Your Car from Brine Sprayed on Roads

 

[Rock Crawler]

I am a fan of Krown rustproofing once a year.
It is inexpensive, after the first 2 weeks it is not near as nasty and messy as Fluid Film and other thick bodied types.
Krown is a Canada based company and if you read forums you will find Canadians who totally swear by it.
For $169 a year, you can't beat it.

 

[crashz]

I'm a fan of any of the oil/lanolin based coatings. Just did a pre-treatment of the rockers and frame of my new truck with Fluid Film and NH Oil Undercoating materials.

I'd like to play with the Krown products too, just haven't gotten around to it.

One thing I have noticed is that over time, the protected areas look good (well, oily and grimy, but not rusty) but it seems like areas that are not treated rust more. My 2012 looked pretty good until I found some areas that I did not treat. Weird places like the seat brackets. They would never had even gotten wet, much less coating in salt spray.

I'm a fan of washing regularly too, but I'm leary of the automatic car washes. They recycle the water, so the high pressure wash cycle sprays salty water at high velocity at your rig. Are the do-it-yourself wash stations any better? Wish I had a hot water set-up at home.

 

[Renze]

My father had a Ford Mondeo of which the underside of the doors rusted, from the inside out. Ford cut some costs on hollow space protection, so i brushed it off every year and brushed some bitumen paint on it, which was as black as the cars paint. Ford had serious rust issues with the 3rd gen Mondeo, which is why they were cheap.

Within 2 years from new, Ford dealers would recall these cars for a hollow space coating, but for this one it was already too late, the rust was already in the seam and kept pushing from within.

So if you undercoat a vehicle, do it when the vehicle is absolutely dry, to not include moisture between the layers.

And when the coat dries out and gets brittle, soften it by spraying some used gear oil on the underside so it doesnt dry crack.

And after welding the door sills of my sister in laws Daihatsu, we poured used oil in them and parked it a few hours in front of the muck heap to drip out, before returning it to her on the clean pavement. Just like English cars: they dont rust where they leak.

 

[East30]

Living in Minnesota. I buy a new vehicle about every four years for my wife and me. She gets the new truck and I take her four-year-old truck. So, we keep them for 8 years with about 150k-170k miles on them. No undercoat and have never had a rust problem on them. Been doing this for 30 years. I wonder sometimes, if me keeping the vehicle from years 5-8, and keeping them outside in the winter, not allowing them to thaw and re-freeze helps keep them better. I'm about to find out as our new home now has a heated garage we can keep them in through the winters. They will now have much more moisture on them through the winters.

 

[Rockbadchild]

Living in Minnesota. I buy a new vehicle about every four years for my wife and me. She gets the new truck and I take her four-year-old truck. So, we keep them for 8 years with about 150k-170k miles on them. No undercoat and have never had a rust problem on them. Been doing this for 30 years. I wonder sometimes, if me keeping the vehicle from years 5-8, and keeping them outside in the winter, not allowing them to thaw and re-freeze helps keep them better. I'm about to find out as our new home now has a heated garage we can keep them in through the winters. They will now have much more moisture on them through the winters.

yeah, it's weird how it works ... I know some vehicles are more prone to rust then others, 8 years is enough time to get rusty, maybe not enough to rust right out but enough to get some surface rust under de vehicle ...

 

[dodge man]

I see people saying the aluminum will rust. Aluminum won’t rust although in theory it can corrode. I belong to an F150 forum and so far I have not heard of a single case of an F150 having any issues with the aluminum parts corroding. I have seen people ***** about how rusty some of the steel parts are rusty underneath on brand new trucks. They have been making the aluminum body’s since 2015 so that’s going on 8 years now.

 

[slckeys]

I see people saying the aluminum will rust. Aluminum won’t rust although in theory it can corrode. I belong to an F150 forum and so far I have not heard of a single case of an F150 having any issues with the aluminum parts corroding. I have seen people ***** about how rusty some of the steel parts are rusty underneath on brand new trucks. They have been making the aluminum body’s since 2015 so that’s going on 8 years now.

Maybe rust was the wrong word. But when I was having my truck rockers and cab corners repaired... There was an aluminum bed Ford in the body shop for repair. Rust/corrosion, I don't know which. But it was no longer looking 'factory fresh' so to speak. My area gets a lot of pre treatment for expected bad weather though...

 

[Torvy]

Living in Minnesota. I buy a new vehicle about every four years for my wife and me. She gets the new truck and I take her four-year-old truck. So, we keep them for 8 years with about 150k-170k miles on them. No undercoat and have never had a rust problem on them.

I grew up 10 miles from Minnesota. Y'all use a boatload of salt. If they are not rusting in Minny, they won't rust elsewhere. Older vehicles may be a lot different, anyone adding rustproofing to a new car is throwing away cash.