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1,453 Posts
When I bought my 07 (new) I had no idea of the upkeep this frame would be. I'm guilty, the first few years I owned it the only thing that probably "partially" saved my rear was car washes that I used often that did underside when you went through and all I was there for was the wax and shine back then, I didn't realize the preventive things I should be doing. I had heard of Zeibart, but always heard you would just increase your chance of rust sealing it up with their rubber. I didn't know about oils and stuff like fluid film.
I didn't for a second think 2 years, 3 years in I should be getting under it with rust converters etc. My other cars I had owned, and I do say cars meaning unibody, I never ever noticed anything to scare me when they were up on racks. So it didn't click when I got the FJ. Maybe the FJ had a high amount of "1st time truck buyers", could be, it was a funky looking thing that drew me to it from my Scion TC. Maybe that small piece of data would tie some of this mess together on who has the most trouble. - Then again I also see people abuse the **** out of them and never clean them at all.
My wake up was about 2012/2013, getting more on this forum and Facebook back then I really started to pay attention. Since then I have had to dedicate at least 2 weekend a year to serious underside work. The last 2 years, that became two weekends, and a few hours in between those weekends. Almost quarterly. I honestly did not have the time, talent, $$$ or resources to do a full strip and meticulous work over with POR15 like some has done.
I don't think there is any harm in getting data, collecting info and such. There are some camps that strongly feel other frames from other vendors don't fail as quickly, maintained or not as a Toyota frame. Do I personally think Toyota will fight this? Yes. Do I think at this very moment Toyota even sees the FJ as a blip on a radar for owners organizing over this? Probably not. However if they were watching I wouldn't want them thinking "we got this crowd" and blow off perhaps real safety issues.
I'll just people watch from here

I didn't for a second think 2 years, 3 years in I should be getting under it with rust converters etc. My other cars I had owned, and I do say cars meaning unibody, I never ever noticed anything to scare me when they were up on racks. So it didn't click when I got the FJ. Maybe the FJ had a high amount of "1st time truck buyers", could be, it was a funky looking thing that drew me to it from my Scion TC. Maybe that small piece of data would tie some of this mess together on who has the most trouble. - Then again I also see people abuse the **** out of them and never clean them at all.
My wake up was about 2012/2013, getting more on this forum and Facebook back then I really started to pay attention. Since then I have had to dedicate at least 2 weekend a year to serious underside work. The last 2 years, that became two weekends, and a few hours in between those weekends. Almost quarterly. I honestly did not have the time, talent, $$$ or resources to do a full strip and meticulous work over with POR15 like some has done.
I don't think there is any harm in getting data, collecting info and such. There are some camps that strongly feel other frames from other vendors don't fail as quickly, maintained or not as a Toyota frame. Do I personally think Toyota will fight this? Yes. Do I think at this very moment Toyota even sees the FJ as a blip on a radar for owners organizing over this? Probably not. However if they were watching I wouldn't want them thinking "we got this crowd" and blow off perhaps real safety issues.
I'll just people watch from here