Anybody else have the rear wheel arches rusting? Both sides of mine are rusting. I've kept this truck pretty clean and waxed so it's disappointing that this is happening. About this time last year I noticed a little bubble on the passenger side. The below pic shows what that little bubble has turned into over the course of a year. Now the driver side has a hand full of bubbles in the same area.

Any ideas on repair costs?

[/URL]

 

Mine has bubbles, but I've been gentle on the area.

I am going to bring mine to a body shop at some point and get any rust issues repaired. Only because I plan on keeping it until I can't get no more warranty on it (I think 2022)...

I only have ~58k on mine, and it's a '07 that is garaged 95% of the time.

I dread to see the repair bill though... although, I was thinking of fixing it myself. The worse thing I can do is waste some paint and sand paper... at least I can't say I didn't try when I take it into the body shop, lol.

It's funny... I was riding in a '84 Prevost Bus a couple weekends ago, and I always wondered how the heck they keep'em from rusting in NY?!

 

The sooner you get it in, the cheaper it will be to repair and the less chance you'll have of it getting worse. You've got to love living in the South when it comes to maintaining the sheet metal of your vehicles!

 

Maybe because the skin of that bus is aluminum, just like big rigs have been for 40+ years.

 

So far I only have 1 quote from a very well respected body shop and they want approx, $1000 per side. Seems high to me so I need to shop around. My biggest concern is that if I only fix the area that is currently rusted what's the chance that it won't start to rust else where on the wheel well.

It drives me nuts that my previous truck was an 89 ranger and the only rust it had on it was just starting at bottom of the doors. I can guarantee that truck had mud packed into those wheel wells and no rust at 15 years old and 275,000 miles when I traded it for the 05.

 

Commercial vehicles most times have aluminum bodies.

 

Yeah, I forgot about that...

Gee.. I wonder why they don't use aluminum for truck and car bodies?

I did read some where that Ford was going to make the F150 out of aluminum at some point.

Kind of strange...

 

Cost, the buses I drove at school were 150-180k. Big rigs are much more than that

 

The 2015 F150 will have a mostly aluminum body and high strength steel frame. IMO Ford would do good to compare it to the strength of commercial motor vehicles for advertising. The hood of the F150 has been aluminum since the 2004 body style change.

 

It rusts from the inside out, so from inside the wheel well. You can wax and clean the outside as much as you want, but it won't keep the inside from rusting.

When you wash the truck, do you spray up in the wheel wells at all? When I get to the wheels, I stick the hose up inside and at full blast spray the heck out of the wheel wells. It's amazing how much junk comes outta there...

Wheel well liners would be something I'd invest in once you get that fixed...

I'm thinking about getting them now, since mine is brand new...

There is a thread on the site about a member who installed a set.. Just gotta get them and do the install..

Good luck!

Mitch

 

No rust on the inside. Believe it or not, the inside of the wheel wells look fine. Just the bubbling on the outside. Almost like something has been behind the paint since it was painted at the factory.

Yeah, aluminum I suppose is more costly.

One day I would like to see an all aluminum light and medium duty truck segment.

 

What you are seeing is the result of a well intentioned engineering change. A number of years ago, they added a step in the assembly / welding process where foam is injected into the small space between the outer quarter panel / box side and the inner bed side. As I heard it, the foam was intended to stop a vibration issue.

Well the foam did stop the vibration issue, but is created a new problem - especially for us folks living up north where road salt is used. Water and salt get up into that area pretty easily and no car wash is designed to really flush that area out. And the foam makes flushing even harder. So the salt settles in and starts to corrode the metal from the inside out. It's not at all unusual (where I live) to see Ford trucks 2-3 years old with rust starting to develop in the top of the wheel well arch. (And yes, I do include Super Duty trucks here.)

What we've started doing to our SD fleet is squirting WD-40 up into that area on a regular basis. After losing 8 truck beds to serious rust in that (and other) areas, it seemed like the only logical thing to do. Oh, and no more drop in bed liners either.

Hope that helps.

 

This is the exact reason that my 04 is not driven in winter, it has only been driven 5 maybe 6 times in the winter since I bought it in 05. And the very few times it has been out I always give it a very intense under carriage wash afterwards to save the cab corners, rockers panels, door bottoms, ect. After seeing what the salt did to my 94 F150 I don't want the same thing to happen it my 04 which is why is sits in the garage all winter.

A buddy of mine has a body shop, I had him do some rust repair on my wifes 05 Focus. With 150,000 on the clock it started to show some rust on the bottom of the doors, he charged me $180. When I got it back he said the best thing that he has found to prevent rust, either on a new vehicle or one that had rust repair done, was baby oil. He said he buys a few gallons every year and puts it into a pump sprayer, he removes the door panels and sprays the inside of them, and with the vehicles on the hoist he sprays all the little areas that may hold moisture. He does this to his own and also customers vehicles and he said he has had great results with doing this once a year or so.

The problem with truck boxes is that there is an inner fender and an outer fender. The salt and water get trapped between the 2 layers of steel, then they just start to rust from the inside out. Then Ford apparently put foam in between the layers which just made things worse, Chevy did this same thing in the 88-98 body style on the cab corners.

I cant wait for the all aluminum body to come out, then no worry about rust up here in the north.

 

You do know that aluminum oxides too right? "Rust" is the general term for oxidation on iron or steel. It shows up as an ugly orange colored mess. Oxidation on aluminum shows up as "white salt corrosion."

If you think aluminum doesn't oxidize, look at what salt water does to aluminum outboard motors or stern drives in pretty short order. So yes, the new F-150 will have it's own special corrosion issues. They'll just look a little different.

 

You do know the outside skin on 04+ flare sides is not steel, it's basically plastic. Plastic or fiberglass or whatever they use does not rust or corrode at all, so it will stay pristine forever until it gets hit.