Cracked/peeling paint on welds

[RioRunner]

I was cleaning things up in the wheel wells today and noticed I have a few areas that the paint is coming off some seams, leaving welds exposed. I find this to be a little concerning, and also premature, on a vehicle that's only a little over a year old with 23k miles. Has anyone else had similar issues on their 5th gen? if I make a trip to the dealer, do you think Toyota would do anything to remedy the issue before it leads to rust or other problems?

 

[STX4Runner]

There's been several threads about frame rust like this recently. Toyota probably wont do anything about it and you don't have anything to worry about. I live somewhere where it never snows (i.e. no road salt) and I have rust like this too.

 

[catrains]

the paint peel is from the weld flux. use a zinc paint to protect from rust on the welds.

in the rust belt this can become an issue @10 yrs.. in the warmer areas little snow probably not a big deal.

I doubt toyota will do anything about that paint fail on the welds.

 

[Simpleman74]

its fine... hit it with POR15 if you are really worried about it

 

[mwray8909]

I'd definitely have the dealership take a look

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G890A using Tapatalk

 

[chester4Run]

I bought my 2011 with 60K on it about six months ago. It spent a couple years in the MD/NoVA area according to carfax. All the frame welds had surface rust like this. I spent a couple hours cleaning them with a wire brush and some brake cleaner, and then just applied rustoleum flat black to it. A little more rust showed up over the next couple oil changes, so I reapplied the rustoleum. The last couple oil changes I haven't seen anything coming through. (yep, 20K more on it already)

Short version is that it seems normal. A little effort with a brush and cheap black paint will fix it right up.

 

[nb rob]

this is just surface rust.
Bare steel will surface rust immediately.

Structural steel is kept outdoors, and step one of any fabrication process is to blast the steel with various methods of abrasion to clean the surface rust off. The steel is not weakened, and the nominal dimensions do not change from a design standpoint. If surface rust were an issue at all, the steel would be kept indoors.


There's a big difference between surface rust and perforations. If you want to contain it,
POR15 is a great product.

But none of these spots of rust are an issue whatsoever. A wire brush and some paint are all that are needed. Or some fluid film. Either way.

 

[Toyota72]

I was cleaning things up in the wheel wells today and noticed I have a few areas that the paint is coming off some seams, leaving welds exposed. I find this to be a little concerning, and also premature, on a vehicle that's only a little over a year old with 23k miles. Has anyone else had similar issues on their 5th gen? if I make a trip to the dealer, do you think Toyota would do anything to remedy the issue before it leads to rust or other problems?

Has this gotten any worse, OP? I have a 19’ 4Runner that has this same issue at a couple of welds. It spent its first 8 months in Michigan.