Regarding rubberized undercoatings

[762mm]

It's absolute Bizarro world but that's how things work and the majority of American people are dumb enough to fall for it and pay more money for the simple convenience.

It's not only dealerships, governments exploit this scam too in order to make money. When I bought my 2014 SSV for $9k this summer at a dealership, our version of your DMV told me I need to pay tax on $21k value in order to get a tag for it, because that's what their computer said the truck is worth in "The Book"! It didn't matter that I had all the paperwork (contract) with the actual price paid.

I asked the woman at the desk and her supervisor if they wanted to buy the truck from me then... because I was ready to give them a great deal on it at just $18k! Neither wanted to answer.



I refused to pay it, turned around and had an evaluations shop appraise the truck for a $100 fee. They came out with an appraisal of $10k (Canadian). In the end, I saved over $1000 in sales tax! (tax is 10% of the value, collected when you first plate a vehicle)

 

[TobyU]

It's not only dealerships, governments exploit this scam too in order to make money. When I bought my 2014 SSV for $9k this summer at a dealership, our version of your DMV told me I need to pay tax on $21k value in order to get a tag for it, because that's what their computer said the truck is worth in "The Book"! It didn't matter that I had all the paperwork (contract) with the actual price paid.

I asked the woman at the desk and her supervisor if they wanted to buy the truck from me then... because I was ready to give them a great deal on it at just $18k! Neither wanted to answer.



I refused to pay it, turned around and had an evaluations shop appraise the truck for a $100 fee. They came out with an appraisal of $10k (Canadian). In the end, I saved over $1000 in sales tax! (tax is 10% of the value, collected when you first plate a vehicle)

Awesome for you. Glad you stood up for logic and won!
It's all a scam.

 

[rjdelp7]

Toyota uses a nice, factory black coating, for rust protection. Does anyone know what it is?

 

[mjp2]

Toyota uses a nice, factory black coating, for rust protection. Does anyone know what it is?

I'd only want to know so I can avoid it. They were buying back 1st gen Tacomas and replacing frames on 2nd gens due to rust issues.

Source: I own a 2nd gen Tacoma and am a moderator on a very active Tacoma forum

 

[rjdelp7]

I'd only want to know so I can avoid it. They were buying back 1st gen Tacomas and replacing frames on 2nd gens due to rust issues.

Source: I own a 2nd gen Tacoma and am a moderator on a very active Tacoma forum

I saw it on a RAV4, up on a shop lift. The entire underbody, was coated.

 

[TobyU]

I'd only want to know so I can avoid it. They were buying back 1st gen Tacomas and replacing frames on 2nd gens due to rust issues.

Source: I own a 2nd gen Tacoma and am a moderator on a very active Tacoma forum

That is certainly true, and Ford had some issues with the old minivans but I don't think those were even undercoating. But there were some frame recalls.
The problem is it's really hard to absolutely determine what's it fall in these situations.
You could have 5000 vehicles all coated with the same stuff but done from different batches or different weeks or whatever and they could fare differently down the road.
Then you have the extremely variable conditions of different vehicles in different parts of the country.
Then you have the issue of someone driving on rocky roads and shipping up the undercoating versus someone who never gets a Nick or chip on it and it seems to work great.
I there's just too many variables to absolutely say that rubberized or the cheaper tar style undercoating is always a bad thing.
Some people have Toyotas that were Factory undercoated that are holding up quite nicely that if you looked at them you would assume they would be much worse if they never had undercoating.
I will agree with you on wanting to avoid it though because they are simply better products out there.
Krown, Corrosion Free, Woolwax, Fluid Film, and New Hampshire oil undercoating are all better than the traditional spray can rubberized undercoating. But these do have to be reapplied on a somewhat regular basis to get maximum protection.

I will say that I have extended life of Rusty undercarriages many times by getting down there and scraping off as much of the flaky rust as I could, spraying the heck out of it with Rust-Oleum paint usually gloss black, and then sometimes after that dries I will go over it with rubberized undercoating, sometimes standard cheap can of undercoating, sometimes truck bed liner spray.
This has all worked better than simply leaving the frame alone and letting it to continue to rust.

For metal that is not already started to significantly rust and Flake off, I do feel it would be much better to use one of the self-healing style more flowing Coatings like I mentioned previously.

 

[TobyU]

On a related note, we can bash rubberised undercoating all we want but if you take two plain old pieces of sheet metal and cut them in equal sizes and lay one outside with no protection and then cut one with any type of undercoating got it. It will certainly be more rust free and last longer and have fewer corrosive pits in it and a couple of years from sitting out in the conditions.
But as I mentioned, too many variables. This piece isn't getting small nicks and chips in it and the other piece wasn't even painted to begin with. It would be very hard to do any accurate testing of these things.
You would have to have your test metal be appropriate style like an auto frame and then paint all your pieces properly like a typical Factory paints their automobile frames. Then you would have to try multiple Coatings and treatments and then have everything blasted and chipped in the same relative ways to see what happens.

 

[Plati]

My buddy has a picnic table his Dad made of Cypress. Been sitting outside a long time with no rot EXCEPT at one seat end where another piece of Cypress connects the side seats as an end seat. Totally rotted where they overlap. That's what happens with rubberized coating, water trapped in there leads to rot.

Same thing IMHO with the dreaded aluminum paint problem at hood leading edge. Due to different thermal expansion characteristics of the paint and rolled aluminum, cracks form in paint, water gets trapped in there and aluminum oxide corrosion forms under paint.

It's all just an opinion. Mine.

 

[TobyU]

My buddy has a picnic table his Dad made of Cypress. Been sitting outside a long time with no rot EXCEPT at one seat end where another piece of Cypress connects the side seats as an end seat. Totally rotted where they overlap. That's what happens with rubberized coating, water trapped in there leads to rot.

Same thing IMHO with the dreaded aluminum paint problem at hood leading edge. Due to different thermal expansion characteristics of the paint and rolled aluminum, cracks form in paint, water gets trapped in there and aluminum oxide corrosion forms under paint.

It's all just an opinion. Mine.

I think you're right about the hood issue.
Freeze and thaw Cycles are a real bear too.
Once it gets in there it continues to lift and separate. Hey that's a Playtex Cross Your Heart bra commercial. Lol

On the picnic table though, as I said before there's too many variables that we can account for our know what exactly happened. More than likely it was an absolutely dry when it was put together or whatever. It cost so could be impossible to keep water out from your description and it just gets in there and stays damp because it can't dry out from where it's overlapping.
That's one of the situations were if you can seal it you will get better results but if you can't you could make it worse on the frame of a car.
The real answer is for all of us who live in bad climates to move where there's not issues with road salt and rust.
I haven't been able to bring myself to do it yet at this point I'll probably never move.
It's nice but also disgusting to see a car that's over 15 years old from a nice climate that looks absolutely like it's a year-and-a-half-old underneath with no visible rust anywhere. When are cars in less than 5 years look terrible.