I was walking back to the car yesterday and did a double-take when I saw the bumper on this otherwise inoffensive Chevy pickup. Around these parts, it seems like the 1999-06 GM pickups are less rust-resistant than their 1988-98 predecessors, especially around the back part of the cab on extended-cab models. That said, this bumper is seriously Swiss cheesed, for any vehicle. The weird part was that there was no rust anywhere else on the truck!
Was it chrome or grey painted?
I wonder who GMs supplier was that year and how hard they got squeezed on the contract? Or was it an in house job?
Or, I wonder if the original, OEM one was damaged, and replaced by a knock-off.
Right, could be the cheap knock off replacement that was all the insurance company (or the owner) was willing to pay for.
I wonder how fast a chrome rear bumper disappears from a truck in the junk yard if the bumper is solid?
Many times it is a bad repair, maybe it got rear ended early in its life?
Very odd. My father has one of these trucks and has the exact same problem, only worse. Not only did the bumper rust out to the point of breaking off, so did the bottom of the tailgate and entire bed floor underneath the plastic bedliner. It’s so bad that the bed sides actually flop around if the tailgate is not latched.
You can even see where the floor is gone because the bedliner droops in the middle. This truck had lived in Florida & my best guess is that it had hauled fertilizer or other caustic material at some point.
His is white also & has the 4.3 engine. I drove it once & it drove very well & was quite comfortable despite being the base model.
I think there’s something rust-prone about these bumpers. Having grown up in Michigan there’s obviously a lot of rust, but it seems to happen on the painted bumpers more than the chrome ones. I’ve noticed it on the base models like this one and the Z71 Suburbans and Tahoes.
I agree. Almost every body color-keyed bumper of the Z71 Tahoes/Suburbans of this vintage that I see on the road in Michigan, are rusted.
Perhaps the owner used it to tow a boat and thats rust caused by the water. I have seen all kind of suvs and trucks with rust caused by that.
There may have been a bad batch that came through as most of the ones hereabouts (northern Alberta) seem to have been replaced by aftermarket units, and the very few stock ones remaining seem badly rusted out like the one above.
Makes me glad that 1) almost no salt gets used around here–a bit of a calcium mix going over the Cascades, but nuthin’ locally, and 2) the ’03 Silverado gets to stay in a mostly dry garage when not in use. We’re pretty arid by Paul’s standards, but this really helps.
Re boat: no signs of a hitch.
One of these days, I should replace the bumper. Backed into a tree at my inlaw’s place when the truck was young and bent the bumper fairly well. A new one is on the ’round tuit’ list, budget permitting.
That is a base model factory original painted bumper on a ’03-’06 (or ’07 classic). The sheet metal may not have any apparent rust, but I’ll bet the frame is flakier than a croissant. As for Junqueboi’s father’s truck in Florida (where I live), a base model late model truck such as this, if rusted badly in back, was probably a pool service, or lawn service pesticide truck.
A pool truck is one of the worst things imaginable, the warehouse next to a friend of mines was a pool supply company and they had a late model Ranger that was just about broken in half after about 4 years of use.
It rusted from the inside out, primarily due to road spray and corrosive debris that collected inside it from the rear tires.
I remember that the 1973-77 GM A-bodies had this same problem – it wasn’t uncommon to see a 4×6 or a railroad tie bolted in place of the missing bumper, as used non-rusty bumpers were nonexistent in the junkyards.
a lot of cars with steel bumpers have this issue.
I’ve seen a fair number of ’60s, 70s and ’80s cars even in relatively benign N. Texas have serious rusty bumpers, or rust issues.
I only remember the ’76-’77 Cutlasses having the rear bumper issue when I lived in IL. The problem went away with the 1978 redesign in that the bumpers remained solidly attached to the rear frame (which rusted away and broke off behind the rear wheel arches).
This is easy to explain. Remember in “The French Connection” how the crooks hid heroin in the rockers of a Lincoln Mk. III? This guy was part of a failed illicit road salt ring – “The Quad Cities Connection.”
it was a ’59 buick invicta, IIRC.
Common (bumper rust) on trucks here in Hawaii – those guys that drop boats into the water in the marinas and do a half-assed job of washing behind the bumper. Rule of thumb here is spray regularly underneath the truck (as you would in rust belt states) as ocean salt will collect with mud behind truck bumpers, in wheel arches, etc. . . .
My ’10 Ranger doesn’t tow a boat (yet), but I have a rack for it and I regularly put my kayak, boards, fishing poles on the rack. The kayak will drip with salt water all over the truck and will drip/run down into the drip channels, and so on. As a precaution, after a weekend of kayaking, I wash the truck thoroughly.