Extremely rusty engine bay on 2 year old truck

How does the aluminum block look? In Minnesota, older aluminum blocks start to show corrosion in the form of small white nodules on the surface. But not until 10 years or so. Something here does not add up. At 2 years, under the hood should look brand new or very close.

aluminum block is clean. My trade in, a 2014 Maserati, had much more “scaling” on the aluminum block/valve covers. But as far as the steel parts on that car was clean and nothing compared to this 2018. Heck all of my cars have been in NY for 6 years and none of them have this type of rust.
 
The last time I saw a truck like that was a Silverado 2003 2500 that had been used exclusively in Saranac Lake as a snow plow and parked the rest of the time. In 2013 it had 80K on it and under the hood looked like it had been parked in the Atlantic Ocean all that time. The body had the usual nasty GMC rust but the engine area. I replaced a couple of the ground straps and they literally crumbled in my hands. They were all mint green. In that instance I attributed the underhood mess to being left sitting and never washed down . It does seem odd though for 2 years old even in the rust belt. I always have noticed how some of the under hood hardware on my 10-12 year old Toyotas and Hondas seemed to get unusually nasty like that . It never really hurt anything though.
The last thing Id worry about are the rad clamps though. New ones are cheap. You can hold the rust back on those small parts easily enough by knocking the rust off those parts , hitting them with some sort of rust converter like Naval Jelly, etc. then priming and painting them. Ive done that forever on old Hondas and Toyotas when they started getting crusty. Its never as pretty but its good enough.
 
The power steering resivoir looks like it came out of the ocean. Is that electrical tape wrapped around some of the wiring loom?

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I did a closer inspection. The electrical tape is OEM - found around the rest of the engine bay in untouched areas and also on the Lexus IS250.

engine mount bolts look untouched, brake booster is all original. I think the hose material makes it look like it’s been replaced. Everything seems to be original.
 
Couple more pics up close. Upon further inspection they don’t look too bad, although not good either. It’s mainly the hose clamps that are nasty. Under the truck everything is clean besides the brake line fittings which are in the same condition as the clamps. Very odd. I really think toyota got a bad batch of metal for this truck. Some clamps have rust and others look pristine, but all the factory markings look untouched.

I do like the truck though.
 

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I did a closer inspection. The electrical tape is OEM - found around the rest of the engine bay in untouched areas and also on the Lexus IS250.

engine mount bolts look untouched, brake booster is all original. I think the hose material makes it look like it’s been replaced. Everything seems to be original.
Yep,I've seen brand new still in the bag Ford wiring harnesses wrapped in electrical tape.
 
Check some nooks and crannies for any rust and sediment. I’d wonder if this truck had been in a flood. I haven’t seen anything like that either. Another possibility is that the engine compartment was open to the elements for a while. Maybe a Carfax check is in order?
That's what I was going to say. Flood?
 
That looks like kindness damage done by purple power (or similar)that was left on too long, the stuff is aggressive to anything with an anti corrosion coating. There are people who try to keep the engine bay looking like it just came off the lot and spray that stuff around every time the wash it.
 
That looks like kindness damage done by purple power (or similar)that was left on too long, the stuff is aggressive to anything with an anti corrosion coating. There are people who try to keep the engine bay looking like it just came off the lot and spray that stuff around every time the wash it.

actually that sounds quite possible. Maybe someone sprayed on degreaser and forgot about it. Hopefully most of this can be saved. Last time I saw clamps this rusty and had to replace them due to leaks was on a 16 year old Hummer that was never washed lol.
 
Does it appear the crustiness radiates from the battery? It seems it could be that way to me. I would check for grounding and vent issues, if the battery is original or if there was an event with it in the past.

I've seen Subarus start to look this way very quickly, but it's otherwise not common.
 
Do they use liquid de-icer on the roads in that area? Here, they spray it on the roads using a pressurized sprayer system mounted to a dump truck.

It looks like the previous owner followed a truck that was applying liquid de-icer too closely, and did so for several miles. The radiator fan sucked the mist from they spray nozzles in, and coated the front side of a lot of the engine components with it... and then it just sat on the engine.

Only the front side of some of the engine components show signs of corrosion damage... the side facing the engine fan. I'm seeing this in multiple pictures.
 
Get the car sprayed at the Rust Cop Shop in Dogerville NY if close. Replace any clamps. I would not put anything onto the clamps to deal with rust while they are on the rubber hose. You could remove clamps and immerse in EvapoRust,
 
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That looks like kindness damage done by purple power (or similar)that was left on too long, the stuff is aggressive to anything with an anti corrosion coating. There are people who try to keep the engine bay looking like it just came off the lot and spray that stuff around every time the wash it.
Great point. Killing it with kindness, or letting the lot boy go for it getting it ready to sell, using something like purple power to clean the engine bay.
 
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