Prinsu rack water out of crossbar bolts and odd fading

After rain or washing the car the bolts that hold the crossbars drip water (also I think out of the channels) and then leave nice water marks down the side...after rain its dirty streaks. Anyone else have this issue and solved it? Also, mostly one side of the rack is "fading" in spots. I attached photos that will hopefully show.

 

One of my favorite inventions lately are the li-ion battery powered leaf blowers. Super convenient to use for situations like this. I’d hit the channels and bolts with air after washing, and before towel drying.

Can you feel the discolored spots through the powder coat? It almost looks like the aluminum is corroding underneath it.

By the way, how do you like the rack? (Other than those issues). How did the install go?

 

True on the leaf blower, although that alone is a bit annoying hahahaha.

Running my fingers over the side rail I don't think I feel any change in texture yet, or it's just too subtle to tell for now. This just showed up probably no more than a month ago. I wish they had the raw one when I bought mine 6 months ago!

The rack is fine, it's a rack I guess, I got the awning qr mounts and like that I can take the awning off when I want since it's pretty large. Nice to be able to climb up top and shoot photos from as well. No tent up there yet. Don't care what anyone says, there is added wind noise. It's minimal but it's there, however, I don't notice it anymore at all. Install was fine, I did it myself by mounting the side rails first then all the crossbars as opposed to building it on the ground and having someone help lift it up and over. I cant remember how long it took but I took my time and was in in rush on that afternoon. Prob. took a few hours for the rack and the c4 ladder and the only issue I remember having is how hard it was getting the front fairing on, that part really sucked so hindsight I would prob attach that as soon as possible on the installation. I can see why people build it up on the ground most of the time.

 

I have noticed this issue with my Sherpa rack too. It seems to be some material coming from the screw holes. I did not notice it for the first few months of ownership, but after a few years, the streaking is evident and difficult to wash away. It could be galvanic corrosion between the aluminum crossbars and the dis-similar screws/hardware. The coating on the hardware will be stripped back when you tighten the crossbars down and even the small contact between dissimilar metals can experience galvanic corrosion. The water from rain or washing the car might just be bringing it to the surface.
I don't expect the aluminum is corroding below the powder coating. There is no reason for that. But, I have not found a solution yet. Blowing it dry is not a practical solution because you would need to carry the leaf blower around for every rain event... Not sure if it would help or not but maybe a thread sealer or plumbers tape might slow it down? Maybe even anti-sieze could do the trick. I have yet to play around with it.

 

You’re probably right about the hardware. With all the screws, you’re bound to get galvanic corrosion, and just straight corrosion on the little bits of metal that is going to gall of of threads just from tightening down. Then that loose corroded metal is going to stain things as it gets wet.

Seems like any kind of utility rack is going to have this though. Steel, aluminum, powdercoated or painted. Too many interfaces to guarantee perfection.

Even something that is perfectly welded as a whole is going to wear paint off as it’s used.