This afternoon as I was unloading stuff from my truck, I noticed this...





It's pretty well in there too. The paint around it is bubbling up.

I realize my truck is 10 years old, and this stuff happens. But this is the first decent vehicle I've owned, and the body is otherwise in really great shape. I try to take good care of it, keep the road salt off the body. Is it worth it to get this fixed? Anyone have any advice in the area? At a minimum I don't want to let it go and have a hole form in my tailgate.

 

Well you need to get something on it to keep the elements away to stop it form spreading as much as you can. rustoleum maybe. it wont look pretty but it will keep it at bay before the new paint job

 

Well at least its the tailgate and not the cab.

Should be an easy fix. You can either get a new tailgate, or if thats not rusted through, just sandblast it and re-paint.

 

Seems to be a common spot. I had some there too...but it was because the paint had chipped off. I sanded it out, primed, painted, and cleared. It did the trick. It's such a small area that you just have to do that corner and not the entire tail gate......unless it's a show truck.

 

buy a new tail gate personally

 

i love GA!!!

 

You should see the underside of my truck...solid rust with no more paint on the rocker panels due to sandblasting via road salt.

Gosh I love living in the rust belt....

 

Sounds like that may be the best route to go. As far as paint... those little scratch fixers from Autozone don't really seem practical for something that size. Any recommendations for color matching?

 

I would try the small cans of dupli-color paints, found at wal-mart... they should be able to match your exact color, then you can buy the clear as well and blend it into the rest of the tailgate.

 

They say they match your color, Oxford White dosent but Dark Shawod Gray does. Go figure.

 

that is completely unnecessary. It looks like its just surface rust. All you need to do is sand all the rust off, and sand the paint surrounding it until you get into solid paint that isn't comming off, and feather the edges. Then put a couple coats of primer on. Then sand it with 500 grit sand paper.

After that, spray the paint on the area....try to feather the paint out it out around the area so that it will blend better, instead of painting a little square over the area (it will be more noticeable b/c you can see right where the old paint meets the new paint).

Then spray a few coats of clear on, going just past the area you painted (make sure you scuff the paint where you plan to put new clear on). After it dries, you should be able to polish the area with a buffing compound, or rubbing compound so it blends. It really is not hard, specially since its a small area.

If the rust is too much to sand off, you can get some rust converter and brush over the rust only. It will convert the rust so you can paint over it. You can get some at your local paint store.