OK, this is a sticky issue because some say its only cosmetic and its nothing to worry about.

I'm curious how you feel if you bought a new truck and had this issue?

I live in a heavy salt environment and signs of rust is not good for any vehicle. I always undercoat mine and do as much preventative maintenance to make sure no rust takes hold, not even surface rust. If i see even a speck I do everything I can get to it cleaned up, cosmetic or not.

My truck is suppose to be here in a couple weeks and will be thoroughly inspecting mine before I sign for it. I never really checked for rust before on a brand new vehicle, but because of reports of a lot of f150's with them I will.

How do you feel about it, cosmetic or not?

What would you do if your truck came with it on initial purchase?

My plan was getting the body under sprayed with linex undercoating if it was clean, but if its rusted I'm thinking I should be able to get the dealer to clean it up and do their own undercoating for free.

I know some don't care, some will just fix it themselves, something I can't really do because of mobility issues.

Anyways looking to see others opinion on this, and what they would do in a situation they discovered rust.

 

My 2021 which I purchased in October of 2021 did not have one speck of rust anywhere on the frame. I did get the undercoating but not intentionally. It was apparently packaged together with the spray in bed liner I purchased and they did it when I took it back to have the Berliner installed. Honestly I don’t care too much about the surface rust if it appears because 5 years is about the longest I keep a truck. I don’t know what’s happening to these trucks that are getting shipped with rust on them already but the ones my dealer had all looked pristine underneath.

 

Oh I got the spray in bed liner as well, will be interesting to see if I get the undercoating with it. Will fix all my worries.

I also plan on keeping this for 10-12 years. So preventative maintenance is more important for me.

 

I work in the marine industry and rust is our absolute #1 (by far) enemy, so I’m pretty conditioned to attack and tackle any and all rust as soon as I see it, lol! Of course, I don’t plan on bobbing along the ocean waves with a vehicle, but I do live 500m from the ocean so saltier atmosphere is a fact of life.

Needless to say, whenever and whatever I get, I’ll ensure the underside is coated to death initially so I start off with the best protection. My current vehicles have rust underneath but they started rust-free for many years and they’re approaching 15-20 yrs now.

 

F150 already has a huge advantage because all the body and bed panels are aluminum, no possible rust there. So we're only talking about the steel frame, drivetrain components, brakes, suspension, fasteners, etc. All of those are way heavier gauge steel than a fender or door panel, so will take much longer for rust to cause a problem. In my medium-salt area of New England, there are zillions of cars from the early 2000s with only spot rust on the steel body panels. So I figure I should easily get 15 years out of my truck frame, leaf springs, etc. That's long enough for me.
I fixed cars for a living for 10 years, co-owned a shop. Underbody coatings are the absolute worst when anything needs to get fixed. Gums up all the bolts and fittings, wire connectors, brake and fuel lines, etc. And the cars rust anyway. My opinion - don't do anything.

 

flash rust. dont worry about it, ford certainly will not pay for it

 

Maybe I’m just overly paranoid then, since I see structures daily where 8mm steel plate is down to <2mm remaining thickness (or nothing at all) in 5-10 yrs. But again, it’s exposed to ocean-air interface (wave slap), the most aggressive environment you can have. (And the mechanics just needlegun or sandblast the coatings away to do their work, lol!)

 

yeah I usually don’t buy the undercoating either but I dropped my truck off to get the spray in bed liner and when I picked it up they had done the bed liner and undercoating and said it was a package I bought 😂 they actually did a nice job so I didn’t care. I think they did undercoating by mistake and just said that to cover their *** 😂

 

if you ask them to pay to remove/coat the rust im sure one of the three guys waiting in the lobby will buy the truck instead.

 

Yeah I wouldn’t have asked them to remove it anyway I’ll take a freebie and be happy 😂