GOOD NEWS UPDATE: After about 2 weeks of silence someone else from FR reached out to me to get the issue resolved. We had a great conversation on the phone and according to FR it was a case of customer service following procedures to the letter and not so much looking at the whole picture or our case on an individual basis. After talking with them, they sent us new side mounting rails and a new wind fairing, the parts that we were having the rust issues with. Knock on wood we'll get them mounted soon and be back in business.

TLDR version: if you bought a FR rack in 2018 and have had issues with the finish bubbling, flaking off, rust forming under the finish etc. FR let me know they had a batch of faulty racks in that time period and after being the first to mention it would "definitely" be covered under warranty, gave me the run around for 3 weeks and told me to pound sand. You might have better luck though.

“Thank you for reaching out and bringing this to our attention. From what I know, some f our racks manufactured back in 2018 were part of a bad batch where not long after customers were experiencing paint issues.”


Back story: we bought a FR rack from a dealer and installed it ourselves back in late 2018. It was supposed to be one of the best and we love the utility and modularity. At that time they came with steel mounting blocks, which for us started rusting almost immediately and the finish flaking off. I took the rack off, primed and painted the blocks and reinstalled everything. After learning they existed, I made contact and FR sent us the newer plastic blocks that they switched to due to said rusting issues. Some time later, the rack corners started bubbling up really bad. FR was nice enough to send those too.


Last fall we go to take the rack off to replace those parts and I noticed more finish flaking and bubbling on the side rails and wind fairing. We put it in the finished basement until I had more patience and time/weather to just re-paint everything myself. To date, the rack has been mounted less than 18 months, no super adverse conditions and always garaged.


A few weeks ago I look closer and notice bubbling all over the side rails, rust forming where no signs of chips/damage were present. I just accepted this is what you get with FR, and start stripping the rails and wind fairing to re-paint them. There was legit pitting rust forming quite a few places. I decide to shoot FR an email basically asking "Is this normal?" I have a dozen or so emails but this was our exchange summarized:


Me: Hey guys is this normal? (Note: I never mention warranties, etc.)
FR: We had a bad batch of racks in 2018. Sorry, they are better now.
Me: Wow so this is a known issue with racks from this timeframe? Have you guys announced this or tried to compensate customers?
FR: If you hadn't fixed it yourself it “definitely” would have been covered under warranty.
Me: 1) I haven’t fixed it 2) even if I had, how would that change the product being faulty with exactly what I messaged you about? Especially when I contacted you twice about finish issues?
FR: Do you have a receipt?
Me: I bought through a FR dealer, here is my receipt.
FR: Ok, for warranty work you need to contact your dealer.
*I contact dealer they stopped selling FR products a year or so ago*
Me: Hey guys, my dealer is no longer a dealer.
FR: Oh sorry then, we can’t help you.
Me: So the warranty dies with the dealer? How? Wat?
FR: Ok let us reach out to them.
*2 weeks go by*
Me: Hey checking in.
FR Rep #2: Adam yeah sorry since you bought through a dealer, we can’t warranty it, we contacted them and they were unable to help.
Me: I never expected them to help; they don't manufacture products and can't control your quality.
Me to dealer contact: Did they email you about this?
Dealer to me: Sends me screen snip where FR says “We will sort the customer out directly.”
Me to FR: “You’ll sort me out directly?” *screen snip attached* Let's talk about that...
FR: Like we said if you had said something (I did, twice before mind you) we could have sent you a can of spray paint (for rust forming under finish, which definitely would have helped.)
Me: Seriously?
*Radio silence*

I'd like to thank my sponsor Rustoleum for the upgrade in finish to a $1400 roof rack.