Inside cab corner rust on my 2019 Ram 1500 crew cab.

[PoMansRam]

I got underneath my new to me 2019 Ram 1500 CC, 4x4 SLT today to treat it with fluid film. One of the first things I noticed was these areas on the inside of the cab corners, that by design, catch road spray from the front wheels. There's some dimples just downstream on the bed side that also have the paint eroded off and starting to rust.

All this on a vehicle with a build date of 07/2019 an MSRP of ~$45600 and was in rental service for 10 months and 14800 miles. I've had the truck 10 days. Totally disappointing and disturbing.

I got all the door, rocker and tailgate cavities as well as much of the underside done with my last ~2 quarts of FF, but still need to drop the spare tire and touch up some other areas before fall.

I cleaned up the rusty areas with some rubbing alcohol and coated them with some unopened Rust Bullet I had on hand for a previous project that never happened. These areas are going to need some major protection. I'm wondering if some type of 3M tape, Flex Seal tape, etc would do the trick?

 

[Ohio5pt7]

Unfortunately depending on the area it was a service vehicle and the fact that unless it's visually seen easily they give 2 craps about cleaning those areas it's not uncommon. Especially if it was in the salt belt and never got cleaned off till your dealer put it on the lot to sell. I know back when I detailed cars if it was a car that was built for the south they didn't put anything to protect it on the underside and when they would end up here in the north they would rust faster than you can say sum bit$+.

Sent from my KYOCERA-E6920 using Tapatalk

 

[PoMansRam]

According to the limited carfax you get with an ex-rental, the truck was titled and registered in Oklahoma, then the same day the title/first owner (Enterprise rental) recorded in Kentucky. Who knows though. Could have seen a whole Buffalo winter for all I know. Other than that, the truck, including the bed is spotless. The only ding I have to touch up is dead center above the windshield where it looks like a stone left a ding and a chip.

 

[Ohio5pt7]

Hmm. Sucks when that happems. Your right though could have been buffalo. Never know one of the things that sucks when you buy used. I bought a Tahoe a couple years ago clean car fax got it home from TN was looking under it since it had 65k miles to see if anything was worn and noticed it had been in a wreck. Ya live and learn that's for sure.

Sent from my KYOCERA-E6920 using Tapatalk

 

[PoMansRam]

Given this is more or less road-rash, I know how this would go if I addressed it with a Ram dealer. Living in the Buffalo NY area my whole life, I've had other new/newer vehicle corrosion issues with dealers and none of them went easily. I own the issue now anyway given I top coated with rust bullet paint.

Sadly, I inspected this truck top down and somehow missed these cab corners.

I'm curious what other crew cab owners have experienced in these areas and what theirs look like.

My 2017 quad cab wasn't effected in these areas like this and I was under that one a few times applying fluid film, doing brakes, etc.

 

[PoMansRam]

I'm kind of surprised I didn't get more responses. Seem like some threads just fall off the map, especially with the amount of undercarriage care talk we do here. LOL

This is a bad design on 4th gens. These areas just act like scoops and will catch spray from the front end, even if you've got splash guards up front. I've peeked under 5th gens and they are designed totally different back there. There's no scoop and what is exposed is slathered in seam sealer on 5th gens.

There's gotta be others out there with this concern. Just curious what they did. I'll have to see how the rust converter coating I applied holds up and what to do next.

 

[Richmond2000]

I know dead thread but my 14 RAM in Canada has about the SAME amount of rust there I "flex film" the thing yearly or more - every time it is on the pit at work
mine is a quad cab 4X4