If you are having trouble with black nerf bars, and want to avoid this problem in the future, get stainless steel nerf bars that have been powder coated black. This way if the bars get scratched they wont rust, and then you can always touch them up if you want. Cost is just about the same as the regular steel bars.
I have had an explorer of some kind since 95 and always the same bars and always the same problem. Rust out where the plasic meets on the ends and on the steps. I sand blasted once, sent to be dipped twice rusted again and traded it, sand blasted once again on the new one and now they are back to all scabbed up after 2 years. I do live in a winter climate, but next time I am going with stainless myself. Had enough! I only drive it about 8K a year and its always clean and garage kept.::wacko:
My OEM bars are rusty as well so I removed them long ago because I thought they made my whole vehicle look bad. I plan on treating and repainting them myself.
I think that it just may be cheaper and easier to buy off of evilbay at this point once you add in prep time. That herculiner stuff is about $90 a gallon. Gary D's link looks pretty good. Maybe I'll look for some cheap OEM take off's.
I had mine sandblasted and power coated black for $120.00 and they look great. I was gonna have them done with the bedliner stuff but I saw some done like that and they looked horrible. If you've ever seen a bed with the spray in liner thats had any kind of dirt in it it's hard to get it clean and thats what the ones I saw looked like.
