My X spent the first few years of its life in Michigan according to the Carfax when I bought it. It's a 2000 and i keep it parked outside in southern Ohio. Garae isn't big enough.

It has some places in the corner of the windows on each door that is peeling back and beginning to rust, right where the trim piece ends. I was washing it today and noticed quite a lot of paint is gone from the roof rack itself, but I did not see any body paint problems up there. I have noticed the roof rack peeling on other X's as well. Does anybody know if that rack can be unbolted or removed easily? I haven't really looked that closely yet...

Scott

 

Well I'm now part of the club. I noticed while washing my EX that there was black paint on the brush, so I climbed up to investigate, and found a 6" x 3" area of rusted bare metal with several other areas starting to form. I've always taken good care of the paint, keeping it clean and making sure to wax it a few times a year. Seeing as how the beast is out of warranty, I went down to the local auto body shop to get an estimate on repainting the roof. The gal took a look at it and immediately said this is flawed paint from the factory and that she wouldn't bother with an estimate (in a nice way) until I went down to Ford and try to rectify the problem with them. She took a look over the whole truck and also discovered lots of "checking" on the hood and said it wasn't too far behind. It’s not too often you get honest people in the auto repair business so that was a nice change. I'm sure when I go down to the Ford dealership today it’s going to be another story. To be continued...

 

STILL waiting for SOMEONE to tell me
1) how long auto paint should last
2) under what conditions

Seems to me, that in a free country, those of you who for whatever reason, want to or have to park their vehicles out where the sun can get at them day after day, have a RIGHT to do that.

Seems to me, that in a free country, the destructive effects of the rays of the sun (how many of you know that the sun is a nuclear furnace, continually throwing out all kinds of harmfull radiation) should be allowed to work their magic on ANYTHING (even rocks) that are exposed to it.

So - again, for those of you who leave your vehicles out-doors, HOW LONG SHOULD PAINT LAST ?

As a side-note, I worked in a paint & body shop when I was a teen-ager in the mid fifties. In those days, there were essentially two kinds of paints - "lacquer"-based paints, which hardened primarily thru the evaporation of the solvent, and "enamel" based paints, which hardened BOTH thru evaporation of the solvent AND thru chemical changes resulting from exposure to the atmosphere.

In those days, lacquer based paints were typically only about 2/3rds as durable as enamel based paints. Typically, lacquer jobs would last if outdoors all the time, about three years TOPS, whereas enamel based paints were good for maybe FIVE years.

Obviously, if the vehicles were kept in doors when not in use, you could triple or even quadruple those rough averages.

Today, we have "two part" + clear coat paint chemistry. Far more durable to both phsical abuse AND weather than ANYTHING we could have imagined in the old days.

Which gets me back to the basic question - HOW LONG DO YOU THINK IT REASONABLE FOR PAINT TO LAST, AND UNDER WHAT CONDITIONS ?

 

I also noticed some peeling, rusted patches on my roof. Didnt see them before I bought the truck unfortunately. Guess I'll do what I can to clean them up, prime them and paint them. Probably can fix it up good enough myself since nobody can see up there anyway!

 

The build date on my Excursion is 10/03. Is it unreasonable to assume that the paint job on my $50k SUV is going to last longer than 7 years? I'm not complaining about fading or a baking off clear coat. I'm talking about complete paint failure as its lifting off the metal!! I owned a 93 bronco for 11 years, and for 8 of those I lived in the Tahoe area. Rain, snow, ice, road salt, road gravel, outdoor parking in Reno on 100 degree days, outdoor parking in sub zero temps did not affect the paint on it what so ever. No rust, no paint problems after 200k miles. Auto makers design vehicle finishes to withstand these kinds of punishments, and most cars do a fine job when taken care of, but when there is a consistent failure or defect in a certain model/year, the manufacturer should step up and correct the problem. If brake petals started falling off ford F-150 after seven years you should chalk it up to fatigue?? Hell no! How many people do you think can park a vehicle like an Excursion in a garage anyway?

 

Is it really fair to ask an auto manufacturer to anticipate how you are going to store your car when not in use ? I dont think so. I would think that if you guys are stuck with storing your vehicles outdoors for, oh, say more than 5 years, you are being unreasonable to expect today's paints to hold up. Now bear in mind that 5 year guess, on my part, is just that, because of the highly variable conditions, depending on where you are.

Here in the south-west, the combinatino of intense solar radiation, coupled with extremes of surface temps. of the sheet-metal, will do away with a paint finish far faster than you guys in the cooler climates.

Another factor is the COLOR. The darker the color, the more it is going to absorb the rays of the sun, get hotter, and thus start disintegrating faster.

I think some of you guys are just plain spoiled! Each year we get more durable products. Anyone who thinks the "good old days" and the products we knew then, were anywhere NEAR the durability we have today, has never had to do a valve grind every 30 - 50,000 miles, never changed a set of points, or had to clean a gummed-up carbuerator.

Bottom line - even tho today's wierd paint formulas may not be as durable as the stuff from 10- 20 years ago, they are still VASTLY superior in both durability and color-fastness, to what we had when I had more hair....!

 

I think Ford used to have a 10 year rust through warranty. I know most of the Fords I own did not start rusting through until at least 12 years.

 

RUST THRU ?

I didn't know that!

Here in the south-west, where we do not salt our roads, rust is pretty much unknown (except for those guys who live right near the beach !).

When we were vacationing on the Hawaiin Islands, we saw near new cars with major rust issues - probably a function of the combination of salt air and the highly corrosive soil. I wonder how Ford products do in Florida ?

 

I think you're looking at this from the entirely wrong perspective.

Nobody here seems to be expecting Ford to give a lifetime paint warranty. The first poster relayed how experience wherein he was informed by an actual Ford dealer that his paint was applied inappropriately from the factory. Ford chose to remedy this factory defect...

From there, the thread took off with others relating similar experiences. Many had some similar success with Ford repairing the problem. I can assure you that Ford isn't repairing these issues because they're good guys... they realize that is IS a defect, and they've got potential legal liability if they don't make it right. It's far cheaper to fix a few cars than it is to risk a class action suit, wherein every excursion owner would he contacted and notified about the problem.

Going back to the brake pedal comparison, you can bet that Ford would replace brake pedals if it was known that they used too light of a grade of metal, and that the minor amount of flex resulting from each push of the pedal contributed to work hardening and ultimate breakage... the same logic applies to improperly applied paint. If it was applied incorrectly, and that application causes it to fail prematurely, even several years outside of factory warranty, Ford is absolutely liable.

Thhat leads us to my final point.. in regards to your comments about expected longevity of paint, id understand and agree if these issues were common among 8-10 year old cars, but they're not. To say that its totally Reasonable for an excursions paint to fail at 8 years despite the fact that its abnormal for other cars to have such failures is invalid.

 

I want to warn you guys about the body cladding (plastic moulding), that traps grit and moisture against the paint. Need I say more? I just removed most of mine today and found some supprises. Not only does it trap grit against the paint and sand it to bare metal in some places, but the plastic also grinds through the paint in a few spots too. Luckily, only minor specs of surface rust were found, but I dont get salty roads here. Also, the stock cargo racks grind into the paint as well (there is a thread about this problem). Now im going to check my roof more closely, thanks to you all!

 

Did you get your entire truck done in bedliner? I was looking into that and was wondering roughly how much it would be.

 

I was personally thinking about maybe getting a black rubber roof. The the reason being I want to eventually build or buy a rack to go on top and I in my limited thinking the rubber would keep the roof from looking bad with scratches and things link that. Just a thought and I have not seen any one as of yet have their roof rubberized like a truck bed. What do you guys think?

 

Where/Who is the best division to write a letter to, so that I can explain the paint problems?

Thanks,

Al Yelton

 

Start with a Ford dealership then if you don't get any satisfaction go directly to Ford. I think there are phone numbers and addresses in your owners manual.

 

If the paint job when the vehicle left the factory was done right, primer, base coat, clear coat, right? 6-12 years depending on owner. But there's a problem with the paint job from the factory to begin with, are you with me? Now the ? To you since you worked at a paint shop is how long if the paint job has a flaw in it, will it last? The problem we are having is rust underneath the paint as it blistering & flaking off, exposing the rust that is wide spreading all over areas such as the roof, doors, tailgate, hoods. It's not just a little spot here, it's spread out throughout as on my 2001 Escape the whole roof top, from front to back. With no primer, in sight just bare metal underneath the metallic Wedgwood blue. And as I look at a chip piece just blue on both sides of the chip. How long is a vehicle's paint suppose to last with no primer unless it was mixed in with the wedgewood, which would be weird?