Over the holiday weekend I decided to help my dad replace the front rubber brake lines on his '00 S10 pickup. He's had this truck for 12 years and it's served him well. I got the driver's side done without too much trouble but kept noticing the inordinately high levels of rust on the main mechanical components. It's really really odd because the cab and bed are straight as a pin. Almost Arizona clean. I get around to the passenger side and notice that the upper A-Arm is rusted completely through in about 5 places. I tell my dad that he needs to stop driving this truck because it's dangerous. He agrees and the nail on the poor truck's coffin is seeing one of the really hard to get to hard lines (brake) looking very very corroded. I reach up under the A-arm and break off the bump stop as easily as I would a piece of chocolate cake and hand it to my dad 
. The frame itself doesn't look bad but the rear spring hangers are starting to look scary.
Question #1: How the berkeley did this happen? They do salt the roads here but not an inordinately high amount (West Virginia not Michigan). Too, my 2 year older '98 Cherokee which was driven on almost the same exact roads did not have one spec of corrosion anywhere when I traded her in last year.
Question #2: What to do with it? It runs good (4.3 liter V6, 4 spd auto, 4X4), everything works, and it's really a good looking little truck. As I mentioned, the body and bed are perfect! Dad has too many scruples to try and pass it off to some poor unsuspecting SOB... so there it sits. I've heard about 4.3's working well in older Jeeps. I sure would hate to just sell it to the scrap man.
