Having dealership under coat new truck

Was about to link this. Rubberized sprays do nothing but act like a salt sponge after a long enough time

I've used fluid film and PB surface shield with great success. The frame on my '98 runner still looks just about new underneath all of the goop. It's messy to work with, but easier than chiseling rubber and rust off

 

Though I would be genuinely be curious to see the active rubberized stuff, first I've ever heard of it. Sounds like it could be a great compromise

 

My point was that that video is BS. You can clearly see it was applied over rust many times over. Also, that’s not vulcanized rubber.

When it’s prepped and applied professionally to a brand new vehicle, it works.

 

Like I said previously, my frame looks mint after almost 5 years

 

For me, it comes down to ease of re-application too. Accidentally scrape or damage an oily coating and you just go to any hardware / auto parts store and get a can of the stuff for $10. Takes 5 seconds to reapply and requires basically no prep at all beyond washing salt / loose dirt off. And even if you don't reapply it, it still creeps and self heals a lot of the time. It'll also never harden in your connectors.

I've sprayed my old man's '17 Tacoma with FF every year since he brought it home, you'd also never know it's on its 6th Vermont winter. It looks new underneath. Personally, my vote is on the oily stuff. Either way he goes about it though I wouldn't have a dealer do it.

I've seen dealer undercoat jobs, 90% of the time they do a terrible job and charge you 3x as much.

 

Yeah, I agree with you.

I just wanted to try it out, seems like a durable product. So far I’m happy, we will see how it’s gonna hold up in another 5 years.

I did spray my suspension components and hitch receiver with fluid film.

 

How much did they get you for?

It's about $130 for a couple gallons of Fluid Film.

I'd guess it would be hard for a tech to spend 2 hours undercoating the truck.

So I'm guessing the dealer gets it cheaper as well. The basement level tech might get $20/hr.

$170 in materials/ labor spent by the dealer.

Don't get me wrong, dealers need to profit, but a rubberized undercoating is not what I'd want on my truck.

 

I'm not 100% sure if they do it or not.

 

I got ripped off. That's all I'm going to say but they haven't done it yet and I have my truck so I can cancel I hope.

 

I can't say anything about the diamond kote coating you used, but looks can be very deceiving.

I had a coworker with a second gen that the dealership sprayed with some black coating. It looked great and just like the frame was brand new... Until it started falling off one day. In a very short while the frame went from looking brand new, to looking like the truck shouldn't be driven in a very short while due to the coating hiding the rust forming underneath.

 

Thanks for the link. That's all I found to and it wasn't very helpful. Hopefully you can find some more information. I am really curious, because if true that would be an awesome coating!

 

Found something interesting.

https://www.intrepidautomotive.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Sound_Shield_Solvent_Based_MSDS.pdf

 

Yeah I heard stories like that.

Was the truck brand new when it was applied?

 

Asphalt thined with mineral spirits, and alcohol. That's not what I would have expected for a "self healing vulcanized" coating. That's just tar. Neither vulcanized nor self healing.

 

I don't know. All I know is the dealer installed it.

 

Where does it say it’s self healing? First time I’m hearing that.

 

The advantage of cosmoline and fluid film is that they flow when damaged so that they self heal. I took your statement of "active coating, such as fluid film, cosmolime etc." to mean that diamond kote was similar behaving to those coatings. Perhaps I misinterpreted what you meant.

Either way, that MSDS sheet states that the diamond kote is nothing more than tar and not vulcanized rubber. If they are lying about tar vs vulcanized rubber in their sales pitch... I would find the "active" claim highly skeptical as well. The MSDS sheet certainly doesn't indicate anything that would make it "active".

 

I bought a used explorer that was ziebarted on the frame and wheelwells. After 20 Chicago winters it looked perfect still. Couldn't say the same for the areas they didn't coat.

 

Yeah, people try to rip on Ziebart claiming a rubber coating, but it is more of a tar like coating. I had it done to mine as I have used them several years ago and it worked great, never any rust. They suggest having it looked at and touched up each year, but I touch up with cosmoline.

 

stay away from rubber coatings.