Black Paint on Frame and Undercoating

Hi all,

New to the forum. I just bought a new 2023 TRD Sport and wanted to undercoat with Fluid Film before the winter. The underside of the truck was sprayed with a black paint or coating on the frame. I attached photos where you can see it was applied on all metal and can see some overspray on the exhaust, gas tank, running board connections, etc.

Am I okay to put Fluid Film over this paint/coating? I want to get ahead of any rusting as my last truck had a lot of issues. Thanks in advance. A lot of good info on this forum.

 

Hmm that’s interesting. Not sure why they would have coated it when it’s brand new..

 

Do you live in a rust belt state? Did the dealer upsell an undercoating package?

 

Yes, Pennsylvania. They offered undercoating for 1k and I said no.

 

That sure looks like it was undercoated already. Looks like cheap rubberized shnit. I would be pissed if they did that to my truck.

 

It appears the dealer undercoated it anyway.

Does it rub off at all or is it like a rubberized undercoat?

I think I’d be kinda pissed a dealer went ahead and sprayed my brand new ride with whatever goo they wanted. I would ask them what they are spraying these vehicles with. And also see since they sprayed it if they imply some sort of warranty. Because the flip side is if this specific coating is more of a rust generator than protectant and down the road and your frame rots, they probably would say pound sand.

 

Looks like you got undercoated. Regardless Fluid Film as normal.

 

lol at this price and you got it m for free

 

It’s hard and does not leave any residue when touched/wiped.

 

Wonder if the dealer had already undercoated it before offering the option to pay for it

 

Welcome to the forum. Dealerships will often add extras before the sale and then tally them up on a separate window sticker. It costs them very little to do this so you got undercoat on them. When I bought my wife’s new car the dealer had one of those stickers on it that was about $1,400 in add ons. It just so happened that her car was listed as a manager special so we paid under the factory sticker and got the adds for “free”.

 

I just got my 2023 SR5 a week and a half ago. There was some “stuff” that looked a bit like that on the inside of the frame. It had to have been applied at the factory as I reserved the truck before it was built and picked it up the day after delivery. I saw it before the dealer had done their pre-delivery inspection. It did not look like yours, however. That must have been done at the dealer. If you really want to know, ask them.

 

One auto group I used to work for, we got undercoating from a company for free. The company made money on it when we sold an offered warranty on the product. My guess is they spray most of all their vehicles, then try and sell you the product and the warranty on it. If someone denies the purchase, they didn’t really lose much besides a bit of time having someone do it.

 

I’d still fluid film over that stuff. Rust sucks

 

Frames front the factory have a modest application of a wax-like substance. Ask the dealer what the substance is that they over-sprayed onto your transfer case & exhaust.

Glad that you avoided paying extra for it, b/c you’ll probably still want to do a separate application from a reputable source.

 

I wouldn't waste the FF spraying over the coating, but I would spray anything not coated and also inside the frame, doors etc.

 

Hard to tell from the pics, but I was thinking it could be Cosmoline Black, but it seems a bit thicker and more of a rubberized application to me. It’s not really unusual to treat the underside of a new truck. That’s actually the best time to do it. But there are quite a few options out there that go about treatment in different manners. I opted for the transparent Cosmoline. The also make a black version that looks good if you’re just sticking to treating the frame and other black metal, but I didn’t want to coat everything in black.

 

If you do plan on spraying it with FF, or something like that. Test an area first, I had FF turn an under coating into a gooie mes. Melted it off and dripped allover the driveway.

 

Looks like some type of undercoating
Or possibly bedliner coating

 

Probably vulcanized rubber coating.