Does anyone else have this issue. My factory running boards are rusting where the plastic meats the metal. Its not bad now, but I can't wait to see what another Chicago winter will do to them

 

I think it's pretty common. We've had a least 5 different Ford trucks/suv's that have had this issue. NH applies a lot of winter chemicals and Ford does a crappy job of coating the boards.

 

Yup mine rusted pretty bad so I had to take em off but now I like my truck even more without them. Looks cleaner

 

I got rusty ones too. Same place, where the plastic meets the metal.

 

I have to replace my Westins asap, every time I step on them another huge chunk of rust falls off. I have black ones but I think I'm going to go with stainless next.

 

Westin seem to rust really bad. A guy I work with has them and they look horrible.

 

Here is what I did with my boards. I took them all apart, sand blasted and then painted with POR-15. It is normally a smooth coating, but I added black beauty abrasive to give it a rough texture, my first thought was to leave the plastic pieces off, but I ran out of argon to weld up the little holes.

 

I have the chrome plated aluminum ones and they still look good as new, even after 4 cleveland winters. The 5" oval tubes from ford are alum and they come in chrome and black.

 

I've never seen them in anything but aluminum on the f-150.. weird.

 

well I got a bit of rust so not all the models come in aluminum.

 

The small flat ones with the angled ends are steel. The oval tubes with the ends bent in are aluminum.

 

I have these "The small flat ones with the angled ends" and so do both my work trucks and all three are definitely aluminum.. unless I'm just thinking of the same as you, lol!! oh well. But my mounts that go to the truck itself are badly rusted from road salt.

 

The ones that look like this are steel

 

I have the ones like the pic you posted and I just took them off my truck last weekend and took them apart to paint them and they are definitely aluminum on my truck.. I drilled a small whole in each ends underneath when I hung them up to hold the hook and I didnt notice any steel only the mounts to the truck were steel (and those are rusted to all heck btw). Thats really weird?? My bosses 06 is the same as mine too.

 

That's weird, maybe ford made them in both steel and aluminum. I've seen a boat load of NBS 150's running around cleveland with rusted step tubes on them, so I just guessed that they were all steel.