Hey all,

I have an 07 with White Sand Tri-coat that I purchased earlier this year. I was washing it this weekend and noticed that the paint on the roof drain channel was rusting. There are a couple of places where the metal wasn't completely painted and it's rusting through!

It is ridiculous that Ford can't even paint a truck, especially when charging an extra $365 for the 3-stage paint. I want to take it back to the dealer as it is obviously in warranty but I'm afraid they'll mess up the paint job because it is difficult to blend a 3-stage paint like this.

I love the truck, but crap like this makes me so frustrated. I've been looking around and it's a pretty common problem. Almost all of the other expeditions on the lot had some "lack of paint" issues. Here's an idea, how about someone actually look at a truck as if they were going to buy it before selling it?

Anyways, does anyone have any advice regarding the re-paint of the affected areas? Should I let the dealer try to patch it, or request that the whole roof be done?

Thanks,

Russell

 

It kind of disturbs me that you post this, cause I was looking closely at my Expy the other day. I found three seperate areas where metal is showing on the passenger side, and they wanted to just sand down and paint that area. My Father in law retired from the paint plant in KC,Mo this summer and said wahtever I do, don't let them paint the whole door and/or fender. I am almost tempted to just use touch up paint on the spots. It is crap that you spend 30K+ and get this. I took a look at my other car, an econo Nissan Versa, and although it was an extremely cheap car, its paint job appeared "intact". Wonder what kind of QA they use make sure that they are sending out a quality product...or maybe we are supposed to be the QA inspectors, guess that would make us consultants.

 

Maybe the first coat of the tricoat is rust colored, and it's just now bleeding through.........?




or it could just be rust......


hate it when that happens............. :-(

 

I special ordered an Explorer in 1991, it had some paint issues.
I took it back to the dealer for them to take care of similar issues.
My new 1991 Ranger had rust at the top of the rear window too. The dealer took care of that too.
I suggest that you take your truck in and have it fixed as soon as possible.

Clearly point out the location to the service techs, and look over your truck to make sure you catch all the locations that need repairing.

It's not worth getting to upset, just take it in and get it fixed.

I was once told - It's just a piece of metal, plastic and glass.

 

It is definitely Rust! There is no paint at all in this area and you can clearly see the rust developing on the metal. I'll try to take a picture of it, though it's very small so it will be difficult.

nfntruth, the bare metal spots on mine are largely on the passenger side, though there is 1 or 2 on the drivers side as well. In addition, the rear hatch area has a bunch of unpainted or lightly painted areas, and the wheel wells are not fully painted with the black protectant. Overall a very sloppy job. I wonder if mine was done on a Friday afternoon?

I just don't know what to do about it. Fortunately it's on the roof so if they do a crappy job blending it, it most likely won't be noticed but still...

khadma,

My only concern is that it takes a good bit of skill to blend a metallic paint and I'm not confident that the dealer is capable. In the end it is just metal and glass, but it's very expensive metal and glass that should be delivered in good shape. There's no reason to be upset if you scratch the paint, but you should be upset if the paint you purchased wasn't delivered.

 

Please post some pictures of where this is happening. I want to check mine out too.

 

I have a fews spots that just barely have enough paint to not look like bare metal. I really do think the robotic painting sucks. My Titan had the same issue and I called them light spots. How can this be- as we all don't have the same areas that are light? I guess I really need to look her over and have the dealer note the spots and hope they don't get rusty. Thanks for the reminder to stay on top of this stuff!!

 

I know the hinge area for the rear hatch is problematic. Check out how thin the paint is on that.

 

Man, sounds like I don't want to.

 

I didn't get a chance to take any pictures last night, it was dark when I got home. I'll post them as soon as I can though.

 

I will use your pics as a guide and see how I stack up.

 

overview of 2 of the rust spots:



Closeup of same area:



Also another paint flaw about to start rusting:



Closeup of same area:



Finally, crappy painting on rear wheel wells. Both sides are like this:



I didn't spot this stuff when I took delivery of the vehicle because the salesperson was in a hurry and didn't give me a chance to look the vehicle over before handing me the keys. I really like the truck, but these types of issues simply illustrate the complete disregard to quality. It's not like it's tough to see that the undercoating wasn't properly applied, or that the paint isn't covering the sheet metal.

Anyhow, if anybody else has these issues please let me know so I can make my dealer aware.

 

Goto the dealer asap. That rust is not new. Check the rest of the truck with a fine tooth comb so you can point this out.

 

Thanks for the pics. Now I need to wait for the rain to stop, get her washed and do some checkin'.

 

How about the undercoating? Is that typical or should I ask to have that fixed as well?