Okay guys. I got my 2008 B4000 less than a month ago and have been hard at work. I promised in my introduction thread I would post some more pictures when I had it looking a little less stock like.

Well, here are the results.

(I deleted my photo links because of a jerk photoshopping them and posting them without my authorization)

And with that, I'm ready for the beach just in time for the heat of summer!

 

I'm pretty pleased with how everything turned out. It was fairly well masked off. The tranny and the transfer case are more or less clean still. You can see some areas of overspray but it's acceptable and nothing I can't live with. We went fairly hard core on it because of the salt issues down here...and for those of you up north I mean sea salt from the ocean.

The exhaust system isn't sprayed obviously and will probably have to be replaced in 2 years from all of the salt down here.

 

Thanks. It's really nice and I'm more than pleased. To answer your question, it has no specific brand and is very similar to Line-X. The shop I use brands it under their own name and warrants it for life against everything. I've known several people with these bedliners and they've just been incredible. They do beautiful work and the price is right.

So, to answer your question, I couldn't tell you what brand it is but i was just as curious as you are so I did some spy work.

It's applied with high pressure guns in a booth just like Line-X and is fairly rubbery feeling in texture. 24 hour cure time but it's more or less hard when you get it. I saw cans in the shop that said "DuPont" on them and I can't find any information on it other than that and the shop will not divulge what kind of bedliner material they're using.

 

You are correct. Corpus Christi is one of the rustiest, saltiest areas of the Gulf Coast. It's a combination of factors, but the city surrounds Corpus Christi bay. It's also one of the windiest cities in the United States. I don't recall a day where the wind was below 10 mph and they're typically in the 20 mph region, sometimes higher.

Combine the weather factors with sandy soil and a ton of ocean and bay front areas, and you've got massive salt problems.

The typical order of car ownership here is: Buy your first car and don't rustproof it. Why rustproof? It's a scam right? In 2 years, when that new car is rusted through (before it's paid off, if you financed), you buy another new car. Having learned your lesson, you rustproof the heck out of the car to prevent your prior mistake from repeating itself.

Everyone gets rustproofing here if you can afford it. I'd say one of out of two trucks here has it. The ones that don't are dead in a few years unless you're garaging the car at night and are very vigilant about washing. The problem with trucks it that the sand and salt are pervasive...they get all inside the nooks and crannies and eat the car from the inside out. Not to mention the petrochemical plants around here...

One thing...you don't see a lot of old cars down here. Once they're rusted through the floorboard, they won't pass inspection and they're taken off the road. The state has various subsidies (some up to $3500) to replace your vehicle that won't pass inspection and a lot of people use that to get new cars but the car has to be greater than 10 years old and not many rusted out cars make it that long without rustproofing.

Here's a photo from yesterday. This was actually taken in Freeport at the mouth of the Brazos River just off of Bryan Beach...I'm home visiting family and friends for 4th of July and we had a little beach bash. This is about 200 miles up the coast from Corpus and is pretty nasty area for salt but about 1/4 as bad as Corpus because the wind isn't as intense.

(Photos deleted because someone photoshopped my pics without my authorization)

 

Actually I didn't do a thing other than look at several other people's vehicles who had been done by various shops around. I came to the consensus that one of them stood out from the rest as being unnecessarily thorough in their work.

So, I showed up at several of the local shops in person and talked to the people. I got quotes on a packaged deal: Undercoating (for underneath), Rustproofing (clear stuff on the paint and injected inside the body panels), spray in bed liner, and brush guard. I did it as a packaged deal.

I dropped the car off on a Monday morning and picked it up Monday afternoon. The first time they did it, they had a hose explode when they were blowing in the bedliner. It resulted in numerous "drip" marks all throughout the bed. They showed them to me before I even noticed and said they needed to wait on these to take them off and respray it. I made an appointment for the following Monday and I brought it in, at which time they re-did a portion of the bed and made it perfect. They were a very stand-up crowd at this place and they left me very satisfied, particularly in light of the fact that the first time they screwed up.

I didn't do this myself because, number 1, I have nowhere I'd really feel like getting dirty with the stuff and, number 2, I don't think I have the expertise in this field to do the job as well as someone else could. I could have done it, but it wasn't worth it to me considering the deal I got.

They will respray everything and touch up the undercoating and rustproofing once a year for $35.00...they give you a sticker that has the year on it showing you're rustproofed and they put it on your windshield. The bedliner has a lifetime unconditional warranty and is fixed for free if anything goes wrong with it whatsoever. Above all else, that is what made me have it done by a shop because I like the service and support for it, particularly in this area. They brand everything with their own name and don't tell you what kind of bedliner or undercoating you're getting. I saw DuPont cans all over the place, so I can only assume that it's a DuPont product.

I wish I had pictures of the shop and the process for you guys (and I was snooping around) but the best I can tell you is that they were all wearing suits, spraying the truck's undercoating with similar equipment as they used for the bedliner. Everything was carefully masked off and then sprayed.

 

$400 for the grille guard installed, $599 for the rustproofing, undercoating, and bedliner for a grand total of $1,000 out the door.

On the undercoating and bedliner, I paid $50 extra to get the bedliner and undercoating sprayed on thicker. The shop I used calls it their "Down and Dirty" package which is just thicker everything all around for an extra $50.

 

They are surely nice. I'm a believer. It's a love it or hate it thing and I love mine.

For those of you who didn't see my intro thread, here's a photo of the bed when I got the truck.

The B4000 SE comes with a drop-in bedliner...gone...sold off craigslist

The dealer had installed a painted SnugLid fiberglass tonneau cover...gone...sold off craigslist.

All in all, I'm a happy camper with the truck I've got now!

(Photos deleted because someone photoshopped my pics without my authorization)