As a lot of us know, living in the north sucks at times. Mainly Im talking about the salt on the roads in the winter. It sucks. Plain and simple. I bought my Ram 2 1/2 years ago. Put 43,000 miles on it since then. It had 102,000 when I bought it.

For the most part it has been a good truck. Ive put it through hell and back at times. Ive had 10,000-11,000 pounds of trailer and load, 2500-3000 pounds of load in the bed, and its still goin.

But, it has been rusting to hell. There were no plainly obvious spots of rust, at least not bad rust, 2 years ago. Now there are no more fender lips, no bedside lips, and no bottom to the front doors.

The bottom of the tailgate rusted out and Ive had to repair it twice so far. Ive already repaired the left cab corner, and now its rusting out again.

Replaced the brake line next to the gas tank last year.

Just paid (today) $140 to have the gas tank straps replaced. The rear one rusted out and gave up the ghost. I had other things I had to do, so couldnt do it myself.

What it come down to is Ive replaced numerous parts, that Im not going to bother getting into, for maintanance. Added a couple "performance" parts, on my 3rd set of tires, going on my second muffler (rust) and this damn thing is starting to fall apart.

So I have a good running truck that looks like ****. Pretty fvckin aggravating.

*end rant*

Just thought Id share for the hell of it.

 

Almost makes me glad I moved back out of the rust belt

 

They have had a non-corrosive deicer for almost 3 decades, but the salt producers have been buying politicians to keep them using only salt. The non-corrosive stuff is a byproduct of corn ethanol production and breaks down to simple carbon, so it's better for streams and lakes than salt and it's cheaper and easier to apply than salt. Thank your corrupt state officials for taking salt producers money and screwing taxpayers and vehicle owners.

 

I lived in Columbus for 4 years. I had never seen a rusted vehicle til then. I wanted to leave ASAP for no other reason than to get away from having my cars rusted.

 

^^^ my wife is from Alabama and is paranoid about her car rusting (2012 Carmaro), even though she has a Wrangler for the winter.

Yeah, all I know about the history of the truck is it came from New York. Then here to Ohio. So its been in snow and more than likely salt since it was new in '01.

 

I always feel bad when someone here post pics of their trucks and its obvious they live in the rust belt. Suspension and engine components covered in so much rust and corrosion that it looks like they dredged their truck up from the bottom of the Mississippi.

It's not something I'm used to seeing here in Colorado. The engine in my 97, aside from a thin layer of road dust, looks factory new and most of my suspension and the axles are still black. I feel for you guys.

 

Life's better here! I'll take my french fries salted and my roads sanded, please.