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.
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.