Ya know... you've got a valid point.

At work, our aluminum door frames are corroded and they just look awful.

I should take picture...

They should just make the truck bodies out of injection molded polypropylene plastic... there... fixed it...

Or the same thing Saturn made the Ion out of... my buddy has on and you can drop kick the door and it just pops back like it was never bothered. We call it a plastic car... but it's the best thing I've seen hold up in my area in terms of the body. The rest of it is falling apart though.

 

I was hoping there was something I could do to slow it down since the body shops around here want too much money to fix it right. I could just about buy a whole new take off bed for the price of the repair.

I might just sand the current rust off and paint it myself and throw some low profile flares on it to cover it up since I'm not good at body work. I know the rust will come back but maybe this would buy me a few years. I hate the thought of doing this but $2000 to fix it right isn't an option right now. I have a few more body shops to check out hopefully someone comes back with a decent price.

 

Search for POR 15. Available in a rattle can. Use that and then cover it with the factory flares. Might be able to find them in a junk yard.

 

For repair, one could do replacement panels or patch panels welded in. Paint the heck out of the wells with POR or even Rustoleum brushed on.

 

Or instead of getting a truck bed (OEM), get an aluminum truck bed. Yeah, it's not stock... but it's beats having a rusted bed.

 

For $1000 per side, I'd just go ahead and get replacement panels.