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2008 Tundra CrewMax Bed Rust

6K views 6 replies 4 participants last post by  asc08 
#1 ·
I've posted in a couple threads about this, but I'll give a quick recap for those that don't currently have or know they have any bed rust. I bought my '08 New in December of 2007, and it's been garaged and treated quite well since then. I had the bed sprayed with LineX a week after I bought it because I wanted it to last a long time and didn't want to deal with rust.

Fast forward to a couple months ago. I was replacing my bed extender brackets, and noticed a big round bubble (pretty hidden if you didn't look for it) on the floor of my bed to the right of the middle passenger bed bold. Looking closer I was able to see some more smaller bumps.

The next day I called LineX, and made an appointment to have them look at it. They did, and said it was indeed rust, and it was rusting from under the bed, not from the top/LineX. We got under the truck and you could tell it was rusting pretty good under. Next step was contacting the local Toyota dealer. I did, was asked to bring it in, they took pictures and talked to their "people". After a couple days I got a call back and I guess their people said "sorry, its out of warranty, and there's nothing we can do" i could tell the dealer felt kinda bad about it and suggested I call Toyota Corporate. I did, told my story and was basically told right there, there was nothing they could do. I was out of warranty

I've got a buddy that owns a body shop, so I started talking to him. He looked at it also and he suggested I talk to his "frame guy". I took the truck there, and he called around looking for a used bed, and priced a new one ($5k for those interested). There were a couple used ones, but not any close buy so he didn't bother getting prices.

So from there, it was a question of "can it be fixed". He was pretty sure it would be doable and said that's what he would do if it was his truck anyway. So I went ahead and made an appointment to do that. Last Monday I dropped it off and picked it up on Friday, then Yesterday I took it to LineX and had it resprayed.

What Jerry (Frame guy) found was the bed started rusting because under the bolts, they welded a second piece of medal as an extra support. But it appears they did that, then dipped the parts... In any case that area doesn't get enough corrosion protection and water seeps in there and you get nice rusty spots starting between those two pieces. So what he did was cut those pieces out, clean it up, and used Some kind of panel glue to put in new metal. Under he used some stuff from KBS coatings to seal it up. And I also picked up some undercoat and sprayed over top of that and that whole area.

Both Jerry and LineX did a great job and it looks really good. LineX did not respray the whole bed because that would require them to sand it and basically cost me as much/more than the original spray. Where this was less than 1/2 the original cost.

Now while I don't blame LineX since it was certainly not their fault, it did a very good job of hiding my issue until it was too late, and ended up costing me more in the long run since I missed the warranty/TSB :-( Its also a shame Toyota, when looking at the condition of my truck wouldn't step out of bounds a little and treat customer right.

you can see the pictures he took from his iPad during the repair process here: Zenfolio | Dallace Marable | Bed Rust

And attached are a couple pictures of the finished product.
 

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#7 ·
Do you think toyota resolved this issue in the 2012+ models?
I'm starting to see it on my 2013. Right rear bed mount bolt area. about 4 'bubbles' the size of a pencil eraser. Also some small spots in the seam where the middle bed floor panel attaches to the side panel.

I would recommend everyone check these areas out, and see if they are beginning to get rust through from below, prior to the expiration of the 60 month rust perforation warranty. The TSB shows the areas affected.
 
#5 ·
Toyota, like every other manufacturer, is always after the ever important buck, and they will continue to cheap out to make more of them wherever they can. You would have thought they learned their lesson with frame rust issues from Tacoma's way back but they didn't, so by all of that, my personal, uneducated answer would be hell no. If you don't already, I would strongly suggest you wash the hell out of the underside of your vehicle, and either take it somewhere to have professionally rust proofed, or do it yourself. But don't wait for it to rust then think Toyota will cover it, they wont. dmtalon's truck was only 6 years old when it started and he got lucky as he stumbled upon the spots. Lots of guys would never notice something like that for years.
 
#6 ·
Wow, that's actually fairly reasonable for something that extensive. Do you think toyota resolved this issue in the 2012+ models?
I have no idea, but I think if I end up with another Tundra, part of spraying the bed, might either include having the underside sprayed too, or to craw up under there with some undercoating or similar and sealing up all those seams. I bought a half dozen cans of 3M under coating and sprayed up under there as good as I could to help with any future rust.

Of course, there's rust all over the underside of my struck (on the frame). Most of it seems to be just surface rust, which still drives me mad, but there's only so much you can do unless you've got gobs of time/money to prevent it. And if you've got gobs of money you probably don't care. Just swap out when it start rusting.

My tailgate is also starting to rust at the bottom seam. I'm going to get that fixed shortly. Its just on the inside lip, but I'm going to have it sanded down, sealed and repainted. For a vehicle garage kept, and babied (washed/waxed), it kinda sucks.

I'm at 110k miles now, and had my first real mechanical failure too. I had to change the starter last week. So for reliability its still a great truck, and I use it for sure, Hauling bikes, towing my boat etc.. But the rust cancer sucks!
 
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