I am hopefully trading my 04 F150 in on a 02 F350, but the only thing that has me a little concerned is if I will end up with a rust bucket in a couple years. I called a friend of mine who owns a body shop to see if he will look the truck over for me. What areas should I look at to see if there is any rust forming?

 

Look at the bottoms of the doors on the inside where the lower door seal is. The holes tend to plug and lets water sit inside the door rusting it from the inside out. Mine did this on both drivers doors and is now starting to rust through the outter door skin (inner was long gone).

 

Check around the wheel wells and under the bed. Tires can kick salt/sand up to the wells and act as a media blaster. I think Zman had some issues with the bed cross members (or something like that) rusting away.

 

The bed (due to a drop in liner)



I also have some rust over the wheel wells due to the awful fender flares that were on the truck when I bought it.. They trapped dirt which caused it. It isn't bad and can't be seen from more than 5' away. I do have some rust forming on the outside of the right rear door. Probably a weak spot in the paint is all that I can think of.

 

Yikes!...

 

the cab corners on my brothers 01 f250 rotted out

 

Holy crap! And that's only 9 years old? Was that a northern truck? I wouldn't think that would happen on a truck from Missouri.

 

That's partly why I opted for the Line-X spray-in The '96 had this issue too with it's plastic liner It's so banged up now, it has no liner

Now, if one still wants to use a plastic liner to help lessen dents they can put that over the spray-in liner for extra measure...

 

Look at the moldings on the the windows the rust starts under the moldings and works its way out from there. I just had mine resprayed this spring.