Rear Quarter Paint Chipping Issue - TH/Pro? 6 foot box? Other trims?

I was curious about the fitment with the larger fender flairs. Some of the company’s making them for the gen4 say they don’t fit the Trailhunter and the Pro..so I was thinking that was because of the wider flairs.. I will be doing some PPF on the sides and leading edges around the wheel wells.

 

I'll second the A/C cycling or radiator fan turning on and off too much. Like every 10-20 secs.

 

You should definitely take it to Toyota to at least document now rather than waiting. It will be harder to get a claim if you’ve driven tons of miles on the truck.

 

Yup…..

 

The more claims Toyota has, the more likely they are to recognize an issue

 

As others mentioned, it's a symptom of flared fenders, not unique to the TH or bed length. A guy on the Ranger6G RR forum took off his running boards, drove like 50 miles on gravel, and his rear fender and bed are obliterated at the same place. One of his pics below.

Everybody over there who doesn't want it is saying the same: keep the wide running boards on, get mud flaps, and don't run spacers or get new wheels with offset that defeats the flaps. Luckily, the OEM RR ones look decent. The guys getting RokBlokz say those ones are very pliable, and will easily fold/bend without breaking when offroad. Keep in mind RB specializes in rally mods. PPF only will be shredded.

The other thing to keep in mind, is some of these newer aggressive A/Ts just seem to catch and fling rocks like crazy. E.g., BFG KO are notorious rock chuckers.

 

100% running boards that are wide and up tight to the rockers will stop 99% of this. That’s sad to see on that RR. A lot of money for these trucks here in Canada and that would suck. I don’t think Toyota can do anything to stop this from happening besides specking them with running boards. My 3rd Gen Tacoma and tundra both have running boards for this reason.

 

You can’t really fix this.You can somewhat tone it down with protection items .It’s not the paint , this will happen with any paint . All terrain tires will grab rocks and fling them. Even if the paint is a 1/4 inch thick it will chip.Paint dries to a hard material so when it gets slammed by a projectile even though small it will chip . It doesn’t matter what brand the vehicle is . The other issue is all paints in general are now pretty much water based. Water based paints are not nearly As durable as solvent based paints when it comes to chipping and other things like that . You can thank the EPA for that as well. Also vehicles are coated with a much thinner coat, which looks nicer when new . Take a look at an older car one day , and you can almost see that there was more paint on them .

 

I noticed the stock trail terrain tires grab rocks more than any other tires I've had. They had 100 rocks stuck in them after driving on any gravel. I think you're right it's one factor.

I'm ordering these, I'll let you know how they work out too.

 

The more protection from flings the better for sure

 

This is the solution. Very similar to a rally car set up. Even on my 3rd gen the sides started to get pounded from high speed gravel. I'm also faced with upper midwest winter salting/sanding attack on the frames. (salt/sand ruined two of my past gen Tacomas with frame rust failures). I also run higher speed (50 mph+) smooth gravel and dirt roads out in WY, MT, CO and UT while in 4-HI. My solution was larger flaps made from flexible rubber material that still can perform offroad without ripping off. You won't fit the insta-gram image but you will definately save the exterior paint finish and prevent the majority of winter salt instrusion. Summer months I just remove them unless I'm headed for high speed gravel roads in the western states.









another option, a bit more expensive and with a size selection, but may look better

https://rekgen.com/collections/rek-.../products/rek-mesh-universal-offset-mud-flaps

 

Did you end up going with the Greenlane sliders? I was looking at those because they're a good 25lbs lighter per side than the next lightest steel ones.

 

So I did a pretty fucky DIY PPF job on this. First time and looks every bit of it. The truck is dirty so you see that chop line on the top. But I went just to where the fender flare starts to curve. It's really only about the first 6" of the fender flare, measured from the bottom. Doing the whole side in PPF would just be wasteful. Getting the PPF into the curves and groves is a real pain in the ass. This is most a pavement princess truck I drove about 100 miles on gravel with. Some of the rocks actually tore holes in the PPF. And this is with those gargantuan ark mud flaps.

This is a close up to see how buttsmashed the flares get after just a bit of gravel:

 

These pics are very scarry! I log thousands of miles of gravel roads a year, hopefully Toyota has a fix before I need to change my 2nd gen. I'm running Duratracks, no running boards, 3'' lift and some of these pics look worse than the chips on my Taco!

 

Well I randomly came across this thread and went and checked on my 1wk old truck that I drove on a dirt rd to get to a Mtb trail…..sure enough,I joined the rock chip club. Bummer of the design for sure.

 

Living in Oklahoma, I'm on gravel roads semi-frequently. Between jobsites and my hunting lease, I do not see any rock chips on my truck. And I've had my '24 longer than any of you, with KO2's on it as well.

 

Do you have mudflaps or sliders for protection?

 

Yes, and I don't have pokey-outy wheels also. But the sliders and mudflaps don't provide a ton of coverage. I really feel like some of these trucks just have soft paint.

 

Probably. That and some of these folks drive gravel everyday. Bad combo.