Need advice on rust

Good afternoon everyone,

Asking for help on a possible purchase of a '16 Pro. Truck is currently on a CarMax 24hr test drive and so we were able to snap some pics of the undercarriage. Prior to shipping the truck CarMax claimed that they don't sell vehicles with rust but these pictures prove otherwise

The vehicle history shows that it's spent it's first several years in Virginia Beach. It will be spending the rest of it's life in the Texas(if purchased). Truck currently sits at around 80k miles.

Can you guys please give us any advice and/or suggestions? I'm from Cali and my bro who is looking at buying the truck is in Texas. I've never really dealt with a vehicle with this much rust but what would we be looking at as far as possible maintenance right off the lot or even futurre maintenance? What should we inspect?

Thank you in advance... (Pictures being uploaded from phone now...)

 

Vehicle pricing would be a big factor and you can either pay someone a few $$ to remove the rust (I'd opt for laser or dry ice) or DIY which is a task.

I picked up a 2015 that did two winters in the rust belt, just two and it looked like that. It was all surface rust namely on the welds but I got a killer deal, the mileage was low, truck was clean and everything worked. I was hell bent on getting the laser removal at a few thousand but I would have needed to travel 800 miles to get it done, so I caved and tackled the job myself!

It wasn't hard just labour intensive esp under the spare wheel. I hit the chassis with a wire wheel, wire brush, rust converter, surface primer/rust blocker and chassis paint on the exposed areas and then woolwax the entire underside (woolwax'd all cavities that I could find also). The underside looks great, like new but I logged about 10 days of 3hrs of solid work.

I'll be removing the bed to drop a flatbed on soon, so I'll be getting access to the top of the chassis also, so consider bed removal if you want to do a proper job

Lastly things like the parking brake and a few bolts here needed PB blast to get them off, or the risk of snapping bolts but not a big deal for a patient wrencher

No regrets here, I love a project and she's a keeper

 

Send it back to CarMax. Plenty of clean trucks down south… no need to have the hassle that rust will cause.

 

Thanks for the responses Appreciate all the info. My bro did end up returning that rust bucket back to CarMax and they returned his money spent to have that truck shipped to him. So gotta give them credit for that. He ended up finding himself a MUCH better truck that I'm even jealous about now

I'm sure he'll chime in here soon and make a proper new member introduction thread now that he's an official member, but actually a 2x Tundra owner now!
#TundraBros Lol