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2020 ST.. rear end corrosion?

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New York, NY, USA
#1
So mine is an OG 2020 which I purchased in Jan of that year, has 26k New York City miles. It's been through a few winters, and obviously salted roads. I try to give it an underbody wash via the drive-through wash whenever it goes through salt or every so-often. But I just looked at mine recently and seems like its got a decent amount of rust for a 3 year old/30k mile car.. Anyone else got the same? Seems like poor coating/protection on Ford's part, I can feel the paint flaking off on those rusted areas, granted its only surface rust for now. Give it a few more years un-treated like this and I'm sure the rust could get worse to the point of causing issues. Guessing it'd be best to sand it down somewhat and re-coat it?


20230413_164901.jpg
 

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Madisonville ST

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Madisonville, LA
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2021 Explorer ST
#2
So mine is an OG 2020 which I purchased in Jan of that year, has 26k New York City miles. It's been through a few winters, and obviously salted roads. I try to give it an underbody wash via the drive-through wash whenever it goes through salt or every so-often. But I just looked at mine recently and seems like its got a decent amount of rust for a 3 year old/30k mile car.. Anyone else got the same? Seems like poor coating/protection on Ford's part, I can feel the paint flaking off on those rusted areas, granted its only surface rust for now. Give it a few more years un-treated like this and I'm sure the rust could get worse to the point of causing issues. Guessing it'd be best to sand it down somewhat and re-coat it?

Here's mine, it does look like you have some rust. Sand, polish, and paint sound like a good project. Could that be covered under any type of warranty?
20230413_164901.jpg
 

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Cdubya

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#3
Do you park it outside all the time?
 

OP
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Thread Starter #4
Do you park it outside all the time?
Yup, its been parked outside all its life. Thinking about cleaning it and spraying POR-15 on it.
 

OP
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Thread Starter #5
Looks way better than mine for sure.
 

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Randolph, ma
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23 ford explorer
#6
That's the subframe with all that rust
 

GearHead_1

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#7
20 minutes and a little #0000 steel wool and a quality rattle can paint in matte black or semi-gloss will keep that piece looking good for a very long time. I quite like Krylon but Duplicolor and others will fit the bill equally well. Touch it up as needed. Left unattended it will likely get pretty rusty.
 

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Thread Starter #8
20 minutes and a little #0000 steel wool and a quality rattle can paint in matte black or semi-gloss will keep that piece looking good for a very long time. I quite like Krylon but Duplicolor and others will fit the bill equally well. Touch it up as needed. Left unattended it will likely get pretty rusty.
Good tip, will try that
 

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Location
Peoria, AZ
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2022 Explorer ST
#9
ewwwwww Holy crap that is nasty!!!

I've never seen a vehicle like that!!! And i've worked on many hundreds of vehicles over the years...

But I do live in Phoenix and we are in the desert... where a car that is 70 years old still looks damn near new, maybe a layer of dry surface rust that doesnt do any damage and doesn't corrode anything, but if you are painted, its fine for the life of you, lol... I see videos where mechanics back east do simple things like a brake job and everything is rusted together and they have to deal with hammers and penetrating lube and a bunch of cussing and yelling and bloody knuckles to do a simple job that is done here in about 20 minutes all around! lol.
 

TMac

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#10
Growing up in Michigan, where we had crappy winters and cheap road salt courtesy of the Detroit mines, the easiest way to deal with snow and ice was copious amounts of road salting. I spent two years working as a mechanic after high school, and believe me when I say that EVERY job took twice as long since everything was not only rusted but fused!

I had the privilege of working for a dealership for one year where I was the new guy and therefore the "exhaust tech". Everything needed to be cut away with a blue-tip wrench or a cut-off tool. It was easier to work with the torch since the only cut-off tool available had no guard and had the propensity to self destruct; throwing chunks of the circular ceramic blade at you at 7k RPM. I never saw an exhaust manifold bolt that could be extracted. You had to drill them all out and use an "easy-out" (not easy at all) to detach the exhaust from the manifold. In some cases you had to drill the entire bolt out, use a tap and a helicoil so you had something to hold the pipe.

It was absolutely the worst job I ever had- except for a summer I worked for ServiceMaster as a second job cleaning office buildings. They offered me extra money to clean up a kitchen on the side. It turned out to be a murder-suicide. I entered college shortly thereafter.
 

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Peoria, AZ
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2022 Explorer ST
#11
I had the privilege of working for a dealership for one year where I was the new guy and therefore the "exhaust tech". Everything needed to be cut away with a blue-tip wrench or a cut-off tool. It was easier to work with the torch since the only cut-off tool available had no guard and had the propensity to self destruct; throwing chunks of the circular ceramic blade at you at 7k RPM. I never saw an exhaust manifold bolt that could be extracted. You had to drill them all out and use an "easy-out" (not easy at all) to detach the exhaust from the manifold. In some cases you had to drill the entire bolt out, use a tap and a helicoil so you had something to hold the pipe.
I'm spoiled with living in the desert. You would be amazed if you worked on a car out here. My '05 GTO, doing brakes, suspension, or anything else, everything under the car and in the hood still looks new. I've worked on cars that are over 40 years old and been Phoenix cars since first sale and still like new, some light surface rust, but that just brushes off with your hand, doesnt eat into the metal and corrode.

I hate Helicoils... I know those are either you love it or hate it, lol. But when able to, I prefer to do a real fix. But Helicoil is good when in a tight spot and a cheap and easy fix.
 



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