There is surface rust, and then there's this... truck is from VA, 5 months old, and less than 9K miles on it. Little more than disappointed right now. This is in addition to having two recalls on the truck already, my dash display steering menu and return buttons have stopped working - had two dealerships work on it, and with more than 3 weeks in the shop, one clock spring, and two steering wheel switch packs later - still does not work; retractable air dam getting jammed (finally fixed), and of course - transmission shudder.
Many things about the truck I enjoy - 2.7 ecoboost is perfect in terms of fuel efficiency and capability, ford co-pilot is awesome, and lots of small touches and features are well integrated. And, I don't see anything better on the market right now either that I would want to switch to as all of the other manufacturer's are having worse issues or don't offer the amenities I've got in my f150. I am just really disappointed with the quality considering what those trucks cost nowadays.

 

No component pictured will fail due to the surface rust. Ford could spend more on special coatings, but even these will fail eventually and would only add cost to the already expensive trucks. These are mass produced vehicles, not hand finished works of art.

 

Agree that it is not a work of art and that most of what is pictures is superficial - but, if you look at the shock mounts they're pretty rough. What will this look like in 3-5 years? And the surface rust is pretty deep too considering how new the truck is. What it is - is poor alloys that are used and some of it is probably galvanic corrosion due to cheep steel and aluminum in some areas, and then just low grade metal used throughout. Engine mount brackets have some deep rust on them already, too.

 

Just brush the surface rust and use some Rustoleum Chassis Paint and be done with it. Or if you want to spend hundreds each year, you can find a NHOU dealer and have the chassis undercoated, but you have to go back every year to get it recoated to maintain their warranty.

AK4wheeler

 

^this

 

I'm in Alaska and still snow on the ground and I have ZERO rust. My driveshaft is painted Black along with diff and axle tubes.. Have the Max tow dont know if that makes a difference.

 

Deep rust?

You could drive the truck like this for 20 years.

 

I will also point out that some steels are designed with corrosion limitation strategies inspired by titanium and aluminum. Aluminum and titanium do rust, but they rust so fast that the surface oxide is complete and protecive. Rust requires an electrochemical reaction with access to air and a solution of ions (water or better salty water on the surface) with the base metal forming the "wire" between the surface water and air. An absolutely complete surface coating breaks that chain. A partially complete surface coating, even if ALMOST perfect, makes most steels rust faster than with no coating. Corten is designed to rust VERY fast, and is displacing painted steel in highways here in Texas. It looks completely rusted over....because it is. But the surface rust is so complete that it forms the protective barrier as seen in aluminum and titanium. I am not sure that's what's going on here, but the appearance of a thin, uniform coat of iron oxide is exactly how those steels look when they are functioning as intended. In that case, scraping and painting is the absolute worst thing that you can do.

 

The only issues I observed was the oil leak between the differential case and the axle tube, and that may seal in time. It may not be a leak at all, just a misplaced drop of oil, who knows. Keep a eye on it.

 

There was a recent thread on this topic that seemed like it was headed towards being locked. The head-scratcher for me is that if Ford intended these to rust they wouldn't have put the really lousy, incomplete coverage coat of paint on the axle at all. Like Fox 5.0 cylinder blocks back in the day that were intentionally not painted and intended to rust.