Paint Deterioration on Grille

[Visier]

Hi all,

I noticed over the last few months that part of my grille has had paint deteriorating and showing the white plastic underneath. I've only ever handwashed this truck (the owner's manual says not to take it to a car wash due to width), and this is not consistent with damage from a rock chip. Image attached.

I asked my local dealer to check this under warranty, as I've only got around 30k miles on this 2 year old truck, but they said Ford refused to help and claimed it was due to "misuse".

Part of me wants to pursue Ford further, and I probably should. I don't need a new bumper - just a professionally applied paint update. However, I'm in a phase of my life when I don't have a lot of time to deal with hassles.

Has anyone else had this experience, and if so were you successful in getting it covered under warranty? If not, where would be the best place to take the truck to have this professionally re-painted in an affordable way? I don't want to spend several hundred dollars or more to get this fixed, but I also don't want an amateur job performed on this still fairly new and not-inexpensive vehicle.

I did see in a previous post that there is a J7 / metallic gray paint available for the grille, so at least I think I know what paint I'd need if push came to shove and I needed to do it myself, though I'm not confident in my own abilities to not mess up my truck.

Thanks in advance for sharing any thoughts/advice/experiences!

 

[Space Ghost]

is that the only spot? Couldve been a lighter coat applied at the factory than it shouldve gotten.
Looking at the paint, do you get some type of harsh rain/acidic rain? Does look like something harsh got in there and ate through, just speculating.

Living in FL i get tons of rain and sun, and both of my raptors never had anything like that.

 

[Visier]

I live in the upstate of SC. If it was acid rain or even if it had been a harsh cleaning chemical I’d expect it to be widespread, but it’s concentrated on this corner the image shows. I assumed they did a light pass in that area, or didn’t prep the piece correctly before painting (dust or moisture on it prior to painting?). Just speculation, but I’m definitely disappointed that they aren’t willing to add a coat of paint to it under warranty, especially on a high margin product like this.