Update, I took the brand new, 2019 truck with 53 miles to a high quality (and very expensive) body shop, as well as, a top of the line truck outfitter (Line-X). The outfitter rep. was astonished when he saw the "orange peel" paint, when I gave him the Ram dealer's explanation he immediately commented "no, can't believe he expected you to believe that" and asked me to wait so he could show it to his boss; both were take aback by the apparent lack of QC at Ram, they then referred me to a paint expert at a body shop. The body shop paint expert was also in disbelief and called over his specialist who measured the paint thickness (in mils) with a MilPro type electronic gauge; the paint mil thickness was almost double on the areas with the orange peel. The specialist also said the dealership was full of it, that he had never seen one come off the line like that, but that he did not think there was any rust, instead, he figured that when applying the undercoat/base coat in the bed, the paint robot was probably using a broken (plugged) paint nozzle and/or was not calibrated correctly. The General Manager at the dealership offered a free spray-in bed liner (Xtreme Liner) about $375 (with lifetime warranty) and the finance manager offered a Mopar warranty of 8 yr. / 100,000 mi. w/ $100 ded. for a "discounted rate" of $2,285, he also commented that the Mopar Maximum Care warranty cost was $2,185; IMHO "cost" is probably more like $1,800. I accepted the deal but told them that I would not "sign"/fund/close until AFTER the bed-liner is installed and the truck is detailed, it should be ready tomorrow and I'll post pictures IF it goes through. Really want to believe that Ram and US manufacturing (auto workers) are ready to build quality, bad *** trucks again; fingers crossed.
