Tailgate rust...how much to fix?

DEF4Runner

DEF4Runner

New member
About a year and a half ago, I tried a home fix for some rust spots coming through just southeast of the license plate. I sanded down to the bare metal on both sides and found holes, so I applied some VHT, fiber-glassed the backside, primed, painted and clear coated. I clearly suck at body work, but stopping the rust was my priority. Looks like it`s back.

I kinda had a feeling it wouldn`t last forever but the truck has many more miles left and I`m thinking a pro fix might be needed as it looks like more rust spots are coming through. Any idea how much body shops would charge to fix something this size?

I`m thinking there might be some metal transplanting needed this time to do it right???
 

Attachments

  • Rust.jpg
    Rust.jpg
    80.7 KB · Views: 6,942
Last edited:
Register to hide this ad
Depending on cost of fixing and repainting your hatch, it might be a cheaper option to find a used hatch in your area with the same paint color as yours.
 
DEF4Runner said:
About a year and a half ago, I tried a home fix for some rust spots coming through just southeast of the license plate. I sanded down to the bare metal on both sides and found holes, so I applied some VHT, fiber-glassed the backside, primed, painted and clear coated. I clearly suck at body work, but stopping the rust was my priority. Looks like it`s back.

I kinda had a feeling it wouldn`t last forever but the truck has many more miles left and I`m thinking a pro fix might be needed as it looks like more rust spots are coming through. Any idea how much body shops would charge to fix something this size?

I`m thinking there might be some metal transplanting needed this time to do it right???
Click to expand...

zerge916 said:
Depending on cost of fixing and repainting your hatch, it might be a cheaper option to find a used hatch in your area with the same paint color as yours.
Click to expand...

I concur, find a good condition used one with the same paint, it will be much cheaper than having your's professionally repaired, even if you had to buy a new one and have it painted it should be less expensive than having the bad rust areas replaced with new metal, prepped and then painted, the original hatch will have to be removed and sand blasted just to find all the rusted out portions before they can even replace with new metal and then the entire hatch would be prepped and painted, this process is very labor intensive and is not cheap compare to just painting a new hatch.

Most body shops only repair badly rusted body panels if it's a very rare vehicle and the panels aren't availible, because of all the labor involved to do so correctly.
 
I was afraid of that. There aren't too many 4th generation in this area so my pickings will be rather slim.

Might be time for a 5th gen before the cancer spreads too much. Sucks.
 
I had a similar problem with my '08. I took it to a few body shops and they all told me that it wasn't worth trying to fix. I ended up replacing with a brand new liftgate. I think it set me back about $1700 but they painted it to match. That was 100k miles ago and has been well worth it.
 
Glad I found this post. I actually have an appointment in 3 weeks from today for a body shop to remove a spot of rust next to the license plate apply some kind of rust repellant and repaint for $400. I never thought of just looking for the same part from a salvage yard and just swapping them. Gonna make some calls to see if I can find that part before my appointment.
 
I have one super small spot, maybe 1/8" or so. I was quoted $650 to sand it down, fix the rust spot and repaint the entire hatch. This was from a very reputable body shop. I have not done it yet, but plan to this summer.
 
Man it must definitely depend on the area. I am getting a sport hood for my 08' so I was looking at paint quotes for a hood, no body damage, new panel. I went to 3 different shops, the cheapest one was $930 for labor and materials.

The gate's are often pretty expensive at the wrecking yard's, at least when I briefly looked for my 3rd gen's. Here is a couple sites for sourcing those parts, even if it needs shipped in.

car-part.com
autopartsearch.com
 
I’m in the same predicament. My 08 is rusting from the inside out, and I’m trying to decide if I should get the original one fixed right or just swap out for a new liftgate. I have already bought an extra liftgate, but it’s galactic grey so it’d have to be painted nautical blue. I like the idea of keeping the vin tag matching but I don’t want to pay for it to be fixed and then it happen again in a few years. From what I can tell, it looks like it’s caused by a piece of sound deadening material losing adhesion and water getting between that and the lift gate metal. May yank that material out and see if that helps slow it down.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
My rust spot was right where the loose sound deadening was, ended up with a hole a little larger than a pencil eraser

I scraped off as much of that deadener crap as possible and sanded down the rusty areas (both in and out) to bare metal, areas with deadener residue was also sanded down but just enough to remove the residue. After some wipe downs with prep solvent or thinner I applied red rustoleum primer with a brush on the inner surface and a sandable automotive primer outside. After the "patch" was applied I spray painted the inner surface white because I it was the only color I had around, but I also figure it'll be easier to spot any returning rust if the surface is a light color.

The "patch" is composed of aluminum tape with several applications of metal reinforced filler, still have to sand it down, prime again, then base/clear. If the rust returns again I plan to cut a larger area out, make a patch panel out of stainless steel and stop by a buddy's shop to TIG weld it to the tailgate.
 
jsmith21 said:
I’m in the same predicament. My 08 is rusting from the inside out, and I’m trying to decide if I should get the original one fixed right or just swap out for a new liftgate. I have already bought an extra liftgate, but it’s galactic grey so it’d have to be painted nautical blue. I like the idea of keeping the vin tag matching but I don’t want to pay for it to be fixed and then it happen again in a few years. From what I can tell, it looks like it’s caused by a piece of sound deadening material losing adhesion and water getting between that and the lift gate metal. May yank that material out and see if that helps slow it down.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

What "Vin tag" are you referring too?
 
AuSeeker said:
What "Vin tag" are you referring too?
Click to expand...



On every door and the liftgate there’s a sticker that has your vehicles VIN number on it, that lets you know that’s the vehicles original door. I’d like to keep them all matching if possible


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
I just went through this on my 4Runner. The tailgate was starting to rust around the gasket above the window. I had a few quotes from body shops to repair the rust. It pretty much came to a little over a $1k to repair the rust and repaint the tailgate.

I ended up, amazingly, finding an excellent matching tailgate in a local salvage yard for $600. It was an easy swap...took about 2 hours to do by myself.

I totally understand about the vin tag, but in the end I decided it's a 12 year old truck with 288k miles, so how big of a difference could it make. I also took photos of the rusty tailgate to show why it was replaced.
 
My '07 Sport is starting to show some small blisters under the paint a few inches below the license plate. Seems this has to be some kind of flaw that got past Toyota's QC process.

RPvMshNl.jpg
 
Bluesky 07 said:
My '07 Sport is starting to show some small blisters under the paint a few inches below the license plate. Seems this has to be some kind of flaw that got past Toyota's QC process.
Click to expand...

That is exactly how mine started out. I ignored it for quite a while (no time or money, those days). Eventually it got pretty bad; 2' long by a couple inches wide, just peeling out to the point that I could put a finger through. By then time to DIY was still an issue but I had the money to just replace the thing.
 
Dug into mine today before I took it to the body shop.

Looked up used hatches, they are between 800-1000 for a clean one. I noticed half them say rust on inside of back, I assume the same issue. At $60 a hour (current body work rate in Oregon) I have a hard time believing getting a used hatch would be more economical since I would have to paint it anyway. I assume for a skilled body tech it's 2-3 hours to fix this spot, then the normal time to paint.
 

Attachments

  • 20180303_115204.jpg
    20180303_115204.jpg
    136.8 KB · Views: 1,201
  • 20180303_115206.jpg
    20180303_115206.jpg
    136 KB · Views: 1,208
Last edited:
Urg I just bought an 06 thought there was no rust but it's also breaking through on the tail gate. Considering options! At least the frames clean!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Members online

Total: 213 (members: 2, guests: 211)

Forum statistics

Threads
278,306
Messages
3,554,046
Members
248,016
Latest member
Advally Service

Share this page

Trending content

Back
Top