Wow, I can't believe some of the comments. You paid money for a new lift, and expect it to be free of rust. That's completely reasonable.
From the point of view of the corrosion, it's not an issue. Clean it up with a wire wheel or brush and spray a conversion coating (rust converter) on those areas before painting them. The unpainted areas like cables, just clean it up and use some fluid film. However, I would talk to the distributor as that condition isn't what's expected for a new product.
I can say that my Direct Lift is about 8 years old, in a heated garage in Alberta, and has zero of the corrosion issues that yours does. In fact, the painted/powder coated surfaces on mine are in perfect condition, and there is no rust on the cables or anything. We don't put our daily drivers on the lift in winter, but store them in the same garage in adjacent bays.
I have experience with commercial lifts as well. The Direct Lift isn't a commercial lift, for sure, but it's made by Rotary, one of the biggest names in the game, and it's an ALI certified hobbyist lift. It's not cheap junk, as some of the commenters want to claim. Having worked with, maintained, and repaired commercial lifts and now worked with my Direct quite a bit, the direct is perfectly suitable for a hobbyist lift. I have no idea why some of the commenters think a pretty good hobbyist lift should be expected to have even surface corrosion when new.
Many hobbyist lifts aren't certified at all, and therefore have questionable designs and capacity.
That comparison with BendPak and Direct is laughable. They're trying to claim it's inferior, but it was never meant to be equal to the BP. It's perfectly suitable for what it is designed for, which that article ignores.
