I too was surprised to see that the factory brackets had bent. I had only seen that once before on a friends yota where the rear bracket actually snapped off the framerail. He was running brand new 14.5 boggers though which should not be put on an ifs truck. His truck was as rust free as mine in the pics.

Yes, I call those pics rust free. There is surface rust only on my custom brackets which I never painted, and on the factory brackets from after they bent (as we all know when a painted metal bends, the paint cracks and allows rust). If you look in the pics, you can see there is a color difference between the surface rust on the brackets and the dried mud on the framerail. My frame up front has factory paint on it - what you see in the pics is dried up mud as the camera flash is deceiving. I mean sure, there is some surface rust in select spots, but the frame and brackets were not weakened from rust.

One possible reason the factory brackets bent that I can think of is with all the drop brackets tweaked the force on the factory brackets was applied in a way they were not designed to take. Idk. I do know that I went through about 3 drop brackets before a factory bracket tweaked - the factory ones certainly lasted longer than the drop brackets.

-Scerb