question for northern drivers

[99NC]

hello,
just bought my first diesel and i'm lovin' it. it's a 99 f-250 7.3 psd with 6 speed manual and 4 wheel drive. i bought it from a local ford dealer and it had about 40,000 miles on it. the truck is "brand new" clean. i was a little scared about that kind of mileage on a 99, that's only about 6700 miles a year on a diesel?, i've looked at 03's and 04's with 150,000 on them around here, but i "carfaxed" it and it came back clean. one owner in MI or MN and the carfax report had all the inspections and dealer services listed. that leads me to my question for northern drivers. on the undercarriage there seems to be some rusting i assume from driving in a lot of snow and road salt, i live in southwestern NC and it didn't even snow this year so i'm not used to seeing this on a truck is this something to be concerned about or just normal on a northern vehicle.

[Banshee34]

WELCOME!!!!!!!!!

I know here in Oregon we have to watch for rust on the undercarriage which means the vehicle is probably from the coastal area (try to stay away from those).....

not sure about your area though.... hopefully someone from your neck of the woods will chime in soon and give you some ideas.

BTW, do they really use SALT on the roads back there?

[superdude]

Hi 99!!!!!!!!Congrats on your new puchase and welcome to the SITE

The crews do use lots of the road salt up here in bad wheather. No one likes it (especially the fussy about their rigs kind of guys like myself) but it is a necessary evil up here. The biggest thing in this country is to wash the rig as often as you possibly can (at least once or twice a week) and you will help keep the little metal munchers from getting too big of a bite. So.....if you take good care of your rig (and it sounds like yours was will cared for) you can go for a long time before they rust thru. As long as your underbody (sheet metal) isnt rusting thru yet....ya should be OK!!!!!!The best thing for you would be to get under it and give it a good cleaning. As long as there are no rust holes started, it wont get much further since you will now be keeping it out of the bad elements.

[Brian]

my guess would be that it is road salt. i grew up in ohio and alot of cars would rot out from the bottom. always would see rust on the drip edge of the fender wells. far worse rust than here in florida.
your truck will be fine i am sure.
i spray under mine reg. since i am about 75 yards of the ocean. i have never had a problem with my veh's rusting.... reg. washing and waxing helps. squirting off the rad. helps to, the alum. will eventually get thin enough to poke your finger thru. if left unmaintained in salty areas.

i have a buddy that never washes his car, he has had the 94 pathfinder for about 9 years, and it is starting to get some good rust going on it. 9 years is pretty good for a continous salt enviroment. he has gone thru 2 radiators though.

it helps that the metals used now to build sheet metal and frames is better than previous generation cars and trucks.

[99NC]

thanks for all the info, i feel a little better, i crawled back under there after work and it didn't look as bad as it had grown in my imagination. i want to get a lot of years and miles out of this truck so any noise and i think it's gonna fall apart, even used it's a big investment. just a note on the weather around here, some people i've talked to have have heard of #2 diesel but knowbody has seen it. i'm on the east side of the blue ridge mountains, on the west side they get their share of snow, i guess the mountains keep it off of us. if they call for it here we roll up the streets!