Doesn’t look bad compared to what I saw while searching for a 4th gen. Wound up with a 2005 out of CO with just surface rust. Found out why a of the ones out of NJ and other salt using states were so much cheaper.
I think its not bad at all.. its all about aging process
You can do some touches & coat it with surface shield & it will be perfect
Believe me it is a nice catch.
Looks fine. I recently purchased an 04' that looks similar with surface rust. I'm planning to clean it up with an angle grinder / die grinder and then spray it down with a Potassium Phosphate based rust converter to get any smaller cracks / crevices cleaned up. Lastly, I'll spray it with either black paint or a bedliner product.
Not a fan of many "undercoating" products like POR-15 simply because they seem likely to hide/trap water if it finds a way in. And then, I've heard they're extremely difficult to remove if you do need to tackle another problem down the road.
I'm also planning to coat the inside of the frame with PB Surface Shield using one of those 360 cavity wands on their rattle cans since you can't really clean up those surfaces.
I found the rust-related videos by Repair Geek on Youtube quite helpful in researching options.
We bought a really cool 3rd gen but unfortunately has the rust. Everything else in great shape. Only 144k miles. In central Texas, car shops don't want to deal with this...they aren't used to it. As much as we hate to let it go, afraid might be best option. How do we go about selling a used 3rd gen with rust to someone in a different part of the country that might can handle this?