Dealing with rust

New to owning my 4runner. Would love to hear thoughts/advice on preventing rust and dealing with what has already accumulated. It is a 2010 with 116,000mi. I am the second owner.

 

By Northeast standards, that's super clean, especially for a 2010.

 

Well thats some peace of mind. What do you do with your truck to protect aganst rust?

 

I'm a fan of the various lanolin based products - Fluid Film, NHOU, etc. Applied once a year (and not washed in the winter), they can keep things surprisingly rust-free and managable at worst. In the case of this 2010, they would slow degredation (stop some things by my experience) and give you years of useful life with typical maintenance. For comparison, in my area SUV applications run $200 to $250. Make sure it goes into all the gaps and access/drain holes.

 

Thanks for the response. Did you get it professionaly done, or DIY?

 

I've done it DIY a couple of times without great air tools or a lift. With the mess and time, I'd never do again. I'm pretty handy at most things, but this is one that value of my time and the price to have someone else do it is a no brainer.

Also, the 2010 you shared looks on the better side for an Illinois car. Depending on your needs, condition of the rest of the vehicle, price, etc. this could be a solid option. I get grumpy with the binary comments you can often get on forums when there are so many factors at play. Every situation is different. I hope this one is good for you and works out.

 

I would clean and paint what you can-skid plates, etc. and Fluid Film or similar the rest. Not worth removing every inch of rust. FF will stop it from getting worse. There are other products that look better-black in color-and do a similar job-Cosmoline in black.

 

Its so minor I'd just hit it with Ospho and rattle can it.

 

Tend to agree on treating the easy, flat, removable stuff with clean, treat, and paint and then apply oil over. Solid strategy.

Fluid-film has a black too (and I think maybe Surface Shield also?), but I believe it's only added graphite. It doesn't improve the performance but can look a bit more OE if applied well.

 

WoolWax is also available in black and "natural".

 

Mine looked a little worse than that when I bought it in 2019, what I did was use a drill with a wire wheel on it, and knocked down all the loose rust and scale. After that, I cleaned it up good, and coated those areas with two coats of Rust Bullet paint. After that I topcoated it with satin oil-based rust-oleum. After that I had it sprayed with fluid film by of shop, and since then I've touched it up with spray cans every year. It it's holding up great. In retrospect I probably wouldn't do the paint again, I would just use fluid film black or similar.

 

Agreed, got the NHOU done on mine for $300.