Frame Rust

[JB Ohio]

I have a 2014 GMC Sierra Carbon 22 with 81K miles.  Love the truck, hate the frame rust!  It's really sad to see GM used an oil based wax coating which lasts about 1 year in cold climates and allows rust to start.  The entire frame has rust and these pictures only represent a small amount of the total rust.  I remember reading an article by a GM engineer on the 2014 design team and stating this was the most rust resistant truck GM ever designed.  The article helped me decide to buy this truck - https://media.gm.com/media/us/en/gm/news.detail.html/content/Pages/news/us/en/2013/Sep/0905-silverado.html   I have a 2009 Vibe, a 2007 Saturn Vue, a 2011 Impala and a 2017 Impala with more miles in the same climate and none of them look this bad.  I was planning on holding the truck 10 to 15 years as a daily driver and thinking of buying a 2019 C7 Vette this month but it looks like I'll have to put that on hold while I evaluate selling the truck before the rust get's too bad or to the point of structural damage.  My friend bought a 2014 Tundra at the same time I bought this truck, his frame looks great and he has 160K Miles on it!  

 

Come on GM, you can do better!  Powder coat or bond these frames with better rust protection than the cheapo oily wax that only lasts a year.  Even the 2020 trucks use the same wax coating...

 

[Lsgun1]

That's just bare metal exposed, it's surface rust nothing major. You can clean that up in a few hours, I wouldn't trade the truck over it.

[NorthEast]

 

 

 

Some good info in this thread.  I cleaned my (much lighter) surface rust with a paint stripper wheel and recoated with the original daubert spray.  Yours looks scaly.  It'll need to be resurfaced with some aggressive abrasives, hopefully there will be some metal left over.

[1997SierraSLT]

18 hours ago, JB Ohio said:

I have a 2014 GMC Sierra Carbon 22 with 81K miles.  Love the truck, hate the frame rust!  It's really sad to see GM used an oil based wax coating which lasts about 1 year in cold climates and allows rust to start.  The entire frame has rust and these pictures only represent a small amount of the total rust.  I remember reading an article by a GM engineer on the 2014 design team and stating this was the most rust resistant truck GM ever designed.  The article helped me decide to buy this truck - https://media.gm.com/media/us/en/gm/news.detail.html/content/Pages/news/us/en/2013/Sep/0905-silverado.html   I have a 2009 Vibe, a 2007 Saturn Vue, a 2011 Impala and a 2017 Impala with more miles in the same climate and none of them look this bad.  I was planning on holding the truck 10 to 15 years as a daily driver and thinking of buying a 2019 C7 Vette this month but it looks like I'll have to put that on hold while I evaluate selling the truck before the rust get's too bad or to the point of structural damage.  My friend bought a 2014 Tundra at the same time I bought this truck, his frame looks great and he has 160K Miles on it!  

 

Come on GM, you can do better!  Powder coat or bond these frames with better rust protection than the cheapo oily wax that only lasts a year.  Even the 2020 trucks use the same wax coating...Unavailable

 

The frame on my 07’ 4Runner with 105,000 miles on it that has spent its entire life in brutal Chicago climate doesn’t look that bad.  GM sourcing cheap Chinese grade steel these days?

[L86 All Terrain]

13 hours ago, Lsgun1 said:

That's just bare metal exposed, it's surface rust nothing major. You can clean that up in a few hours, I wouldn't trade the truck over it.

The point is you should not have to redo your frame after 1-2 years on the road. This stuff is garbage and a cheap work around for GM to not supply a true coating. They are cutting wayyy too many corners lately and the quality of their products is noticeably decreasing. The only thing you need to know is that even with a rusty frame, the rest of the truck will be long dead before you have to worry about the structural safety. You wont get 15 years out of these trucks unless you grandpa it, garage park it, and never drive in rain or snow. We didn't get 15 years out of the GMT800's and they were twice the quality of a K2.