Rust in box new truck

Lol look at the pics:

I circled the upmost point of the rust residue. It forms a nice straight line showing something directly above it is draining down on that circled lip, then runs into the bed. Fix that and you fix the rust.

 

No drilling. Tonneau cover kit uses the rail mounting holes.

I don't live near machine shop and no railraods.

I should have added more info originally. Please see below. And thanks everyone.



There was a small amount of rusty water there when I picked it up, but I figured it was left in the empty box from tranist and shitty cleaning. I cleaned it up, but it came back and is now worse.

I will try the dealer first as I am owed a free car wash/detailing due to a rushed delivery, which is also why I didn't worry too much about it originally.

But since, it has gotten a lot worse. I don't think it is caused by the tonneau cover and can't be the bolts because I replaced all of them with new stainless. (No, I'm not worried about strength, they are way harder then the soft shotty torx screws originally installed from factory).

My theory is the tonneau cover may have a leak somewhere and the rusty water is getting in the bed, then drying.
My hope is that it is the rivnuts that are originally used for mounting the rails in the composite bed.
Posted this hoping someone had some experience with it.

 

Part out

 

And as mentioned, I didn't want to just spray some fluid film on mounting holes and hope for the best on such a new truck. Even the rivnuts shouldn't be this rusty, should they?

Wait 3 years and then trade, no part out lol.
I would like to have this truck long term tho. Yearly rust coat and ppf on important areas.

 

Is it only in the bed? It's probably rail dust laying in the rails of the tonneau cover. Power wash the inside of the baed and pay attention the the rails.

 

You said you pulled the tonneau covers and the metal rails off but did you actually look under the plastic bedside covers? Might be a raw spot under there along the rail. To me if it was the hardware it would be a stream trickle down at each spot, not this diffuse rust residue along the entire side of the bed.

The bedside sheet metal is wimpy so any decent weight on the rails at any point can crack them. There was a thread on bed rail cap reinforcement for 2nd gens and the photos in there showed the bedside top surfaces had rust and cracks.

edit: or it’s just red clay/dirt…

 

That’s a lot of rust for it to be the rivnuts, they aren’t very big and there isn’t very many of them besides that it looks like they have some sort of coating

 

well played friday

 

Clean it up, treat the metals, watch it and move on. Its not that hard!

 

Truck is brand new. This is something the dealership should be fixing.

 

It appears to be coming from an aftermarket part so its not the dealers responsibility. Rust is forming on the bed from an outside source, I don't think the dealer will do anything. Clean it up,move on and keep an eye on it, its not that hard.

 

I didn’t catch whether or not the tonneau is after market. If so, correct.

If it is aftermarket, pull the cover, clean the rust, see if it comes back. So what @VaToy said lol

 

Pics of where you park at night and at work pls.

 

That looks similar to rust from grinding metal in the bed, the shavings/dust sized dust will sit and rust then it stains the plastic bed and is hard to remove

 

Have you tried an iron remover? Is there iron contamination on the body of the truck too?

 

My truck has the same dust when I drive down a dirt road. I also get the same buildup from pollen in the spring.

 

OP should taste it. Rust has a distinctive taste....

 

Just surface rust on the bed. Sand it down until you hit bare metal (may take a while) and put some rustoleum on it.




Happy Friday and good luck with finding the solution to this issue!

 

I would pull the tonneau cover off, as well as remove the factory plastic bed rail caps.

Give everything a bright light inspection. Wash, rinse, dry and reinstall only the bed rail caps for a bit and see what happens.

 

defiantly start with the taste-test!