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That rust repair on a Chevy Silverado bed taught me a lesson
Last month I had a 2015 Silverado come in. Rust hole behind the wheel well. I tried using patch panels and filler. Looked good for a week, then the filler cracked. Ended up cutting the whole section out and welding in new metal. Took twice as long but zero comebacks. Anyone else stopped using filler on structural rust spots?
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jamesf4125d agoMost Upvoted
Yeah that 2015 Chevy bed is notorious for that. I had a buddy try the same filler trick on his truck, lasted maybe two weeks before it looked worse than before. It's like that old saying - you can't half-ass something and expect full results. Reminds me of my uncle who'd always try to patch drywall with spackle instead of cutting out the bad section. Same result every time, cracks showing through in a month. Some jobs just require you to go deeper than you want to, otherwise you're just setting yourself up for round two.
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price.gavin25d ago
Honestly I've dealt with this exact thing on my own 2015 Sierra. You gotta cut out the rust until you hit clean metal, no way around it. Bondo over rust is just wasting your time and money, it'll bubble up again in a few months guaranteed. Best move is to angle grind down to bare steel, treat it with some rust converter, then patch with fiberglass mat and resin if the hole isn't too big. Even then I'd coat the whole bed floor with a rubberized undercoating when you're done just to seal it good. Took me a solid weekend on mine but it's been three years and no signs of it coming back.
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roberts9525d ago
Tbh is it really that big of a deal or are we just overthinking some surface rust.
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