Undercoated Rust?

I'm looking at an '06 DC 4WD with 150k miles that seems like a reasonable deal. But, I discovered from the VIN that it lived most of its life in Vermont. The frame is undercoated, but I can't tell from the pictures if there is anything to be worried about given it spent 15 years in the salt. I'm unsure when the undercoating started being applied too. Any opinions on this frame?

 

Looks pretty good, BUT it's too easy to hide/see rot happening underneath.

Unless they trust you going around tapping everything with a hammer to check it out, I wouldn't consider it. Too much of a gamble.

On top of that, you'd want to strip that off and do it right. Is that really worth your time? Short answer, no IMO. Pass.

 

It could be the camera angle, but there are a few spots that concern me. Looks like actual holes to me.

 

Y’all got good eyes

 

The rear diff cover is a weld on replacement. Agree with seeing some rust holes. Drop the spare and look closely at the cross members as they often get the worst of it and are hard to reach with undercoating.

 

Just my 2 cents, but that would be a hard pass for me. Looks like coated over rust and rot.

 

Yeah take a screwdriver and start poking around if you can. There looks to be some pretty significant pitting as well in some areas. Definitely seems risky

 

Definitely trying to avoid rust issues. That's why I'm searching in the south since I live in the rust belt. Worth spending the time driving to not have to worry about rust. I'll pass on this one. Shame since it otherwise looked great. Thanks for the quick help!

 

Had to apply bondo on top of the frame holes before undercoating it.

 

I'd run, the front cross member looks like it's flaking. If you do look at it, I'd poke every single inch of it with a screwdriver and plan on any maintenance being a horrible nightmare.

 

Yup, I see more than just the spots @The Black Mamba pointed out, my man has good eyes. Hard pass.

 

Same. Those spots and near the leafs

 

Looks suspiciously like someone is trying to hide rust.

 

Something definitely wrong with parking brake linkage as well

 

Man, people are terrible. Someone spent a lot of effort hiding the rust on that truck just to fuck over the next person. Dick move.

 

I see missing leaf spacers also, bet that ride is creaky as hell!

 

One of the thngs i see is that someone spent an hour or two, with flat black spray paint and painted everything you can see
There are two places they likely missed that are easy to spot.

1) pull the spare tire down and look above it on the crossmember
2) with a flash light check the frame stiffener on the inside of the frame in front of the gas tank and on the passengers side by the muffler. There is a brace that is riveted in, on trucks that live in the rust belt, between these two pieces of metal will start to rust and NOTHING can ever get back in between them. As the two pieces start to rust, the rust swells and pushes them apart. There is a tale-tell sign on the bottom of the frame under this frame brace and when the two pieces start rusting between each other it pooches out the frame and you can see this pooch on the side of the frame visible from the outside and also under the frame. If that frame stiffener brace is pooched and rusting between the two pieces the frame is really weak and if you hook a heavy trailer to it, you can bend the frame.
3)Above the muffler also, use your cell phone with light on to record a video and stick your phone camera up over that aluminum heat shield and check out that cross member the muffler hangs from. Not sure why but that crossmember is quick to rot out and this is a place normal eyes dont see and normal cover-ups like spray paint cant hide.

no matter what, there is plenty of rust visible its just covered in flat black spray paint. Not a huge deal breaker if
1) the entire front end looks good and shakes good with front end jacked up
2) that frame stiffener isnt pooched out and rusting between the two halves.
3) there is no major rot found once you dig deeper.
4) check the body mounts too, seems the back cab mounts tend to get more rust than the fronts

i just noticed after looking again, the tailpipe is gone, sawed off, look at the hanger for the tailpipe, the tale-tell rust that has reduced the size of the metal stud in half. Check all the metal studs that hang the exhaust and see how many are also half their diameter from rust.
This looks like a truck that was just spray painted heavily to hide the rust. You can see the scale in many places, they didnt even pressure wash it to bust off the scale before painting. How does the truck sound and run? Surface rust isnt the worst thing in the world but holes that weaken the frame are. That frame stiffener rusting and getting weak makes the frame flex and tweak if you put any weight on the hitch.