I also recently purchased an 04 1500 Ram Quad Cab with a Hemi. I had some serious rust around the rear wheelwells, I opted to grind off the rust and paint it with some POR-15, then I installed a pair of rear fender flares from Bushwhacker. Then I bought a couple of spray cans of internal frame rust preventitive with the extension tubes. Remove your rear taillight assembly, tape the extension tube to a wooden dowel, push it inside the rear fenderwell as you can and start to spray the entire inside of the fenderwell, especially the area above the wheel wells. The earlier you catch it, the better off you will be. Just search for POR-15 and you will get links to various products to use.

 

My rear fenders are mint..
Front fenders...rusted. completely out on the cab sections...
.
Mudflaps holes rusted out...06 2500 Ram...yes its 8 years old...but thiers more rust damage on this sob than my 82 celica. ..

Pricing out fenders on mopar parts on line is encouraging...half the price than a dodge dealer in Calgary. ..even with shipping... paint AND install will have to be out sourced..

Please clean out your door rubers..if you dont, your doors will rust out on the seams...

Nice to discover thiers options.....Dealership appraisal on trade was sad...

 

i just bought an 05 about a month ago, just made my first payment, and i already cut out the rear wheel wells, and put in new panels, plus i went around the whole truck, an got every scratch, and chip i could find all sanded down and primed, so now my truck looks like something the army would use in urban combat, lol....... it's got 3 or 4 different shades of gray on it, not to mention it was gray from the factory, lol. the only thing i'm not gonna paint is the roof...... the hood has some rust inside, but i'm gonna throw on a srt hood, and the tailgate is rusted on the bottom seam, and has a small dent thats rusted under the bed liner. i'm just gonna look for a tailgate thats in better shape...... i'm gonna put chip guard on the rockers, and bottoms of the fenders doors, and very bottom of the box in front and behind the rear wheels...... and i'm gonna buy after market mudflaps, and use the holes already in the fender, so i'm not making a new hole to rust out....... if this truck didn't have 46,000 miles i wouldn't have bought it, but for only $17,000 and being a 2500 hd 5 spd manual, quad cab, hemi 4x4 slt, i wouldn't have bought it either, lol.

 

do not skimp on it now or it will cost you down the road..my 2002 has 162,000 miles on it and i am trying to find a decent replacement bed....i started with a small spot of rust inside the bed where the drivers side wheel well meets the bed and it spread like wild fire...my drivers side is now nearly 90% gone and the passenger side is 50 or 60 % gone...flares do not help...cut it completely out and paint it or coat it very well..other than this i have no complaints with my truck.. my body guy is saying with the price of a decent bed and repaint it will be 2500 to 3000 dollars.......also must say that on most dodge trucks of any kind i notice that the rear wells seem to be where the rust starts

 

I repaired my rr 1/4 wheel well rust. Before it got bad. I cut out the bad metal and used POR-15 this is by far the best rust inhibitor out there !! Putting flairs I've the rust as some of said is the worst thing to do. I have pictures of the process if anyone is interested. However you need to address it as soon as it appears. Btw dodge fixed when it first appeared. The shop sucked. It was back in six months.! I have a lot of body work experience. So I did it the RIGHT way. !!

 

I have an 07 1500 hemi that has bad wheel well rust. Even a hole started through. I found replacement wheel well panels. I am wondering how much it would cost to have someone cut them out and weld the new panels in then repaint them. The panels are about 30 inches long and 18 inches high if I remember right.

 

Last summer, an older gentleman had parked his 2008 RAM just besides mine, waiting for me to come out of the grocery store. The paint was bubbling up at the top rear wheel wells of his truck. Otherwise, the vehicle was mint. He had paid for the life time rust protection at the dealership when he bought the truck new. The body shop said the repair required replacing the complete exterior panels. Total cost was more than $6000, of which the truck owner had to support more than half due to franchise and what have you. Needless to say, the gentleman was very disappointed.


I quoted another blogger earlier in this thread. My following comments are based on what he figured out. Rust is forming from the back of the bed side exterior panels. Bottom of the RAM bed sides is opened, before and after of the wheel wells. Dust, moisture and calcium get in thanks to these openings. The exterior and interior bed side panels join together at the top of the wheel wells forming a "V".


At the suggestion of the blogger, I removed the break light housings last summer to wash that critical area. Then, I went to the rust proofer for the yearly spraying, with particular emphasis to the technician about the inside of the bed sides, although it's something he had obviously taken care of during every visit.


My 2008 shows no sign of wheel well rust.