RCI Sliders Issues

They have been using it for awhile, I always seem to get stuck travelling down the road behind the trucks when they are spraying it too, lol.

 

Must say I am with OP on this. IMO faulty products should be treated alike. Returned for refund or replaced at the cost of the supplier.

For me it's not about the value of what RCI paid for the powder coating. For the consumer to farm out that kind of work its much more expensive, not to mention time consuming.

IMO the proper offer would be for RCI to either:

1. Cover shipping of the faulty sliders, have them re-powder coated, and sent back to the customer.
2. Send out new sliders in exchange for the faulty ones.
3. Direct customer to local powder coating shop to have the sliders re-done, billed direct to RCI.

I bought RCI Sliders last year and the powder coating is now trashed. 20% flaked off within 6 months and there is surface rust everywhere else. I work long hours, have kids, and do not have time/work-space to deal with this myself. What time I do have is spent with my family, or putting the sliders to use.

I have not brought this up with RCI yet, but this post has motivated me to speak to them and I am hopeful for resolution.

I don't think the OP is owed any special treatment, just the product he paid for at the expected level of quality. One can argue that "level of quality" is in the eye of the beholder, but the vendor has admitted that the product they issued to the OP was not to their standard, and I would suspect mine are of the same caliber.

 

Stainless steel or aluminum is about the only solution to preventing this in the salt belt, sorry OP.

 

My experiencea have been similar to yours,
Their base products themselves are solid and well designed and their support is awesome, however their powder coating quality/strength, packing and their post weld QA and cleaning have left a lot to be desired.

I've started requesting that they send me anything I've ordered as bare metal as ive had a significant issue with pretty much every item I've ordered from them in some way involving or being complicated by their PowderCoating, which so far has come to me pre-chipped on almost every order as well as seems very thin/poor quality in general, many time with corners having so thin of material they come pre-rusted. (Here's a photo of the shock skids I received today, which had.
- rust In the corners due to sparse coat.
- chipped corners due to the pair clanking against one a other during shipping
- welding splatter that was powder coated over, some I could easily knock loose with my finger whereas others came free easily with a tap from a flat blade screwdriver, exposing raw metal.

Id rather just get the bare items, do any touch up and then coat them myself that way I know for sure I'm not going to have to take them off and deal with substantial rust on them as water has somehow worked it's way under the PC or the PC rubbed off from daily, non off-road driving.

 

They were wrapped together like this and placed inside a cardboard box, which compounded the issues with the powder coating's durability as they just clacked against one another during shipment causing the PC to chip at pretty any point the two skids touch one another.



Ive been pretty unhappy having to touch up every item I've received from them prior to installation and then having to worry about the long term durability of the powder coating as it's not even surviving the journey to me before chipping or things like bumping it with a hand wrench or dropping a couple of inches onto dried dirt have caused it to chip, the fact it seems so brittle and i keep having to touch it up before I've even taken it off road, makes me worry about potential long term maintenance and labor ill have to put into them due to possibilities such as rust forming under the surface or just failing and peeling off in general which ive seen a few mention in this thread with their RCI PC.

Id rather just prime and paint them myself that way I know for certain it's done right and will stand up several years only needing to be touched up when they've been scraped against something.

I find myself going back to them as Id rather stick with one vendor for my armor, the underlying products are well designed and their customer service is 5*.

 

My advice is to simply avoid using powder coating on anything for your vehicle. Even excellent powder coating will cause problems once the surface gets compromised. The area that get's compromised will let water get behind a much larger area of the surface than just the visible rust that you can see.

I would remove the sliders. It's a pain in the ass, but it needs to be done. Take sliders to a powder coating shop and have them media blast them back down to bare metal to remove all the powder coating.

I would use Steel-It https://steel-it.com/ AFTER... clean the sliders up and wipe them down with acetone. The beauty of Steel-It, (is not the price/it's expensive), is there is no primer needed. I think I used somewhere between 6 to 8 spray cans. I did several light coats letting it dry in between. It stays on pretty well, AND... when you need to touch it up, you can simply sand around the affected area down to metal and reapply Steel-It, and you should be good to go. Of course you can go cheaper by just doing regular primer and spray paint.

 

I've been thinking of removing the steel RCI components I have, which includes sliders and the transfer case.skid support bracket and having them blasted so I can rattle can them myself for now I'm just watching things closely but plan to tear them off if I see any sign of rust or failure start to form. Thankfully all of the other skids that I opted to have powder coated I got aluminum for weight and distrust of their powder coating based on my experiences with 3 different sets of sliders I went through. (First one had a non structural welding defect causing them to collect water and rust internally, received the wrong angle on the second one and the third is currently on the vehicle) every one of them arrived with chipped power coating as well as had rust forming in a few spots due to thin coating.

 

I’m on my second set of sliders from RCI. The powder coat on the first set began to flake off on day 1 and the rust followed immediately. RCI requested that set back and shipped me a new set. While the new set was better they too began to rust very quickly. Pics below are of the second set. And I live in Central FL, no road salt down here.

From RCIs website:

• Available with our heavy duty black textured powder coat finish, plus we take it a step further and coat all rock sliders with an epoxy primer for an exponentially more durable finish than competitors. We now powder coat in-house allowing us to provide better quality, and shorter lead times for the same cost!

 

I would just get that thing media blasted, treat the rust, sand and then rattle can it or have it powder coated locally. Their powder coating has been consistently weak on every single item of theirs I've had, often coming rusted in spots out of the box.

I would also suggest enlarging the hole in the end of the sliders, treating it with some Eastwood internal frame spray, plugging it and then adding an additional drain spot on the bottom. I'll be doing this myself as soon as the sliders start to show signs of rust under the surface, which I expect they will based on my experiences and this thread.

I wouldn't bother trying to get a replacement set as they'll probably just do the same thing based on everything here.

Their powder coating has made my experience with their otherwise solid products sub par.

 

I've had my RCI gear for 4 years, the only areas showing rust are the spots banged on rocks that i haven't touched up yet.

 

Good ol' rattle can black spray paint is the easiest and simplest to sand and touch up. This is a truck after all.. with a part that's made to bounce off of rocks.

 

On top of that, linex is meant to be a grippy surface whereas you want sliders and skids to be as low friction as possible so thst you skid offer the object, using linex would likely slightly impede this as well as probably come off in larger segments.