Ok, I just took delivery of my 2000 SD 350 diesel. I love it so far but ask me again in about 15-20 years.

I have an old beater to drive daily so I will not be putting huge amounts of daily driving miles on this vehicle. Now I would like to get some answers of the pluses and minuses of rustproofing.

Ziebart, Waxoyl, Crown, rusty Jones... There are so many.

Some say it helps, some say it hurts etc etc.

So I would greatly appreciate your opinions of the best longterm rust prevention strategy. I know that the most important thing is cleanliness with frequent spraydowns of the underside. But are any of the rust programs necessary and helpful?

Cwolfe

 

Do you live where it snows? If you do, I can't answer your question. I live in Houston and it never snows and I don't see any need to spend the money on rustproofing here. I don't know the pros and cons of doing it where you get snow and salt or whatever they put on the roads.

 

Boy Howdy, I live about 35 miles north of Duluth MN. It snows and snows and they use salt.

I don't plan to use this as my daily driver buty I hope to have it around a long long time.

Cwolfe

 

I live in West Virginia, with an F150 that I did not rust proof, moving up to a SD (and will not pay for this service). Everything I hear is that it is a waste of money, even the reputable dealers will tell you that. If you wash your truck well, and I mean get under neath and spray up to wash out the salt and dirt that accumulates then you will be ok. If you rust proof, got to make sure that it is done early, before it gets wet etc. If they rust proof over damp/wet, then you create the environment for rust to build. Take a look at the Ford trucks from the last 3-4 years, probably in good shape.

 

I had my 99 350 CC undercoated with Ziebart. I am satisfied. I paid $200.00 and I think it is worth every penny on a $35K investment. Good Luck. DB

 

I had my 99 sd cc rustproofed and paint protected
by ziebart. I had the initial process done in August 98. After I got the truck home I crawled underneath the vehicle and inspected their work. They missed many many spots. If you just got on your hands and knees and looked you would have thought it was a good job. But once you lay on your back and really inspect the vehicle you will find that they do not even attempt to got the hard to reach places - the places where rust generally starts. The most glaring spot they missed was around each of the wheel wells. There was a perfect two inch gap around each well where it was bare metal. They also did not apply paint protection to the roof. I took it back and they took care of the areas I pointed out but what about the inner panels where I one cannot inspect. If they do shoddy work where you can see than you can only assume the inner panels are done improperly. I took the vehicle back 8-99 for than annual respray and it was more of the same. This time I had added a cap and they did not touch it with the paint protection and once again they did not even spray anything underneath. I emailed ziebart corporate office and they told me "sorry about your luck - the ziebart dealers are independantly owned and operated there is nothing we can do". I had paid with a credit card and ended up contesting the payment. I had the rustproofing done by miracle shield and my credit card did not pay ziebart. If you get rust proofing do not have ziebart do it they suck and I have the documentaion to prove it.