Rust on bumper. Less than a year old

[Hockster]

water does not turn rust color without metal to rust. and i think it should be warrantied, it shouldn't be my responsibility to fix the issue on a bumper that is only 8 months old, and its not only just the seams that is rusting, rust is coming thru on the tube as well,

Hey, I understand your frustration about this. How would they do the warranty repair? You would have to get the bumper back to them for repair. That would be quite costly I think.

 

[WickedPerformanceShop]

Rust

Our prep and powder coat is a 4 step process. The bumper is media blasted and cleaned. Then it is cleaned in an acid bath that removes and grease or oil from touching or other contamination. The bumper is then treated with a spray on rust inhibitor. We then heat the bumper in the oven for 15min and spray a prime coat on the bumper while it is still hot so that the powder sticks into the tight spots. The bumper is then baked for about 30min. Then cools for about 20min and then is sprayed with the final color while it is still warm. The bumper is put in the oven for 15min then pulled and checked for missed spots or thin areas. If the need be the bumper is sprayed again and allowed to bake the full amount. After the bumper is cooled we use black natural silicon caulk in any areas were the bumper could hold water. Its not to cover the rust or hide a problem its intended to stop water from pooling in areas and causing rusting down the road. Our textured black is very similar to rustomleum bed liner. We recommend it for touch ups and rock chips not spraying the whole bumper. No matter what we do some bumpers will rust. I believe that it has to do with moister that is trapped in the material. We have noticed it coming out of the tube when it is heated during powder coat.

Chriskent85 Im not saying its your responsibility to fix the issue. We have had customers complain that their bumper is rusting from paint chips due to rocks and road damage. Its very hard to warranty a coating because there is a lot of debris hitting the bumper during driving. Thats why we don't warranty it.

There was a comment on the welds what should we worry about with our welds. All of our welds have good penetration and our going to hold up for a long time. I did notice in one picture that there was a pin hole in one of the welds. Thats should not be there.

I ask you forum members what do you think is a fair way to solve the problem for the customer. We are happy to make things right.

 

[chriskent85]

these were my main issues. the rust coming thru the tube were no seams or welds are. And I am in no way badmouthing you or you business. Like i said before, I think he is a great guy! I just thought powder coating was supposed to be more durable than paint

 

[Hockster]

I see your point about those places Chris... IT should have not rusted there even in 5 years..

 

[BigJ]

Chris, to my eye that last pic, those two leftmost circles are nicks from road debris, not from under the powder. There would be a significant bubble effect, and flaking, if it was coming from underneath.

The rightmost circle looks to me like splatter from some foriegn chemical. I have *very* similar staining on my non-Wicked bumper, and its from road crap no doubt about it.

The welded areas and pinhole... that's another matter. It sounds to me like Tim feels the same. But even so, if it were me, given the hassle of taking everything down, sending it back, waiting... I would hit up home depot for some cleaner and bed liner and call it good.

 

[chriskent85]

they were in it when it arrived at my shop for me to put on, and they actually are raised up areas that look like weld splatter. I use to weld for a living so i know a little about it, Im defiantly not and expert, I was a line welder for steel joist.

 

[Hockster]

Chris, my front bumper I bought from ADD had a small amount of rust from dings and sure but, the coating still looked great and it went through 2 salt winters...

 

[BigJ]

they were in it when it arrived at my shop for me to put on, and they actually are raised up areas that look like weld splatter. I use to weld for a living so i know a little about it, Im defiantly not and expert, I was a line welder for steel joist.

Well crap bud, why wait 8 months to make an issue of it? Why not fire off a pic or three the day it arrived, before install?

 

[Boss Hoss]

Most likely. However, it's just simple powdercoat... So it'll rust like that no matter what. Also looks like you live in FL so humidity, being near the coast, and summer heat/humidity will expedite the rust process. Do yourself a favor, and Wicked a favor as well. Just get it Line-X'ed. I know you don't want to pay for it now, but think about it in a year or two when it gets surface rust again. Wicked most likely won't cover it at that point and you'll end up getting it Line-X'ed mostly likely anyways. Just my $0.02.

Sorry but powder coating is not powder coating! I have seen it being applied to oil field equipment and it sure as hell did not rust because what it was going on cost almost as much as a Raptor! In this case and almost every case all of the welds will rust through because they were not prepared correctly period end of discussion. A coating process is only as good as the preparation of the surface to be coated.

This looks like a real mess to me---sorry but it will only get a lot worse. The rust will migrate into other areas under the powder coat and until the corrosion gets to the point where the substrate is gone then it will finally release. Point is there is a lot more than what you can see.

 

[Raptor911]

I had a Tundra with a N-Fab front bumper. They also make one for the Raptor. Within 6-months, my N-Fab front bumper looked exactly like the OP's bumper. I called N-Fab and they wanted to see pics. Within 48 hours, they shipped a replacement bumper out to me and took back the rusted bumper.