Rust question for the Yankees

Some friends asked me to look at a truck out here in Midland. It’s a previous rental 2021 Expedition that shows a few records in Connecticut. It’s got some rust that makes us Texans a little uncomfortable. There are a few spots on the frame a little bigger than a quarter but the pics I took are too blurry to bother posting. Here’s the spare and the worst exhaust hanger. You can see some on the axle too.

Would you guys use this to try and negotiate a better price or walk away?

 

That ain’t rust.

 

Midland TX?

I'll be there at pop's house for the eclipse next month. Right across the street from Alamo Jr high.

 

At the risk of sounding glib, where is the rust? I can see the frame in the background, and that thing looks CLEAN.

 

Jesus H Christ, that ain't nothing. You damn southerners have it too easy. I've seen worse rust on new vehicles on the lot

 

I had to give it a minute to see if this was sarcasm To be fair that’s the most rust I’ve seen on a vehicle for sale in Texas in my 42 years and I spent 3 of those selling used cars at a high volume dealership. Hell, the only reason I looked was because I saw the records in Connecticut.

You have to park it at the coast just about in the water for 20 years to notice it here.

 

Unfortunately, yes. Is pop in oil and gas? If no, why the hell hasn’t he moved away?

 

Nope. He was a rural route carrier for USPS. Drove around the boonies southwest of Odessa for 30 years.

He's been retired for 10 and even my brother having grandkids (well... his wife...) here in DFW can't get him to move from there.

I just don't get it.

 

Trust me, I am intimately familiar with Connecticut rust, and that's not Connecticut rust. I mean, I still see metal in those pictures for Christ sake. Here, they use liquid magnesium chloride, rock salt, and salt brine for their snow and ice control program on the roads. My poor Ford Excursion. The body, the frame, the trailer hitch, everything just gone. I saw a tiny crack in the paint on the trailer hitch after coming home from the track at the end of the season last year. I was poking at it, and my finger went right through the metal. Everything behind the paint was gone. Bought a new one, took it to my mechanic who will fix anything for me and he said if he removed it from the frame there would be no frame to reattach the new one too. Pretty much the same for the rest of the frame, suspension parts, and the body. Your pictures remind me of what a brand new truck looks like here.

 

Rust comes free with cars from England.

 

When you can poke a screwdriver thru the frame then you've got real NE rust.

 

I think its important to mention here 'eff Connecticut

 

Definitely not sarcasm. I'm at the IL/WI border, and I can show you what rust looks like. My son has an '02 Avalanche that literally has holes in the frame, and every single metal surface underneath has sizeable scale on it. Like there's not a single area on that truck that looks as good as the worst of the picture you posted.

 

I recently hauled a 21' RV trailer from Vicksburg, MS that had been parked on Padre Island for several years. I figured out why my buddy's brother gave it to him, once I saw it. I'm from the midwest near the Mississippi River where salt is cheap, and have seen plenty of major rust buckets, including the early Honda Civic and CVCC models, where the floors completely rusted out of them. Never imagined a TX RV could be so rusty!

Edit:
I forgot about the '02 Tundra I bought from my good friend who bought it new. I had to sell it cheap, because no one was willing to put it on a lift to work on it. For fear the well documented rusted frame might break in half.

 

That is also not rust by OH standards. But, by all means use the little bit of surface rust to drive the price down.

 

Ha...Haha...Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha.... that's not rust, merely a little discoloration.

 

Patina

 

That's barely surface rust. Rust belt rust is like Dave K...scaly and everywhere.

 

They basically come from the factory like that. I would put some rust encapsulator on it and send it.

 

My 03 Sierra has no rockers. All but one wheel well arch is rusted. Rockers were replaced before I bought it, lasted 5 yrs.