Aluminum trucks coming. Big industry bet - what will consumers say?

[Henning]

These are structural elements..... thick sections, they will not burn unless you powder them or possibly very thin sheets exposed to high temps and/or oxygen could burn. The biggest problem with aluminum is that it loses it's strength quickly at very high temps, which a pickup would not normally see. If it does get that hot, weakened aluminum is the least of your problems.

Yeah, don't get me wrong, I don't see a problem with using aluminum, and I'm hoping that we get an improvement in paint technology for aluminum, because 'state of the art' right now still kinda sucks.

Is it possible to order one of the trucks 'negative paint'? If I could buy one bare and then polish it and do the accents in Candy Apples from House of Kolor, that would make me sorely tempted.

Most commercial and industrial aluminum structures, including boats, are kept in bare aluminum for two reasons. The natural oxide coating it develops is far superior in regards to the protection and preservation of the material than paint (paint can actually help speed deterioration) and the fact that paint is a bloody nightmare to keep on the aluminum. It's like the stuff is saying "What is this junk? Get it off me, I've got myself covered thanks, just leave me alone."

The only thing I have found that works well on an aluminum deck is the Rhino Liner process.

 

[ateamer]

Huh.....

Oh, you mean like the side saddle fuel tanks that explode when hit ??



Never mind..... That was the Chevies.........

You do know that the NBC report on that was fraud, right? They rigged the gas tanks with explosives.

 

[docmirror]

Oh I think Ford might have some ideas about using Al in building stuff. Not just that, but you don't make this kind of major change to one of your flagship products without some serious engineering. Unless of course - you are Coke(for those that remember). lolz...

 

[Henning]

You do know that the NBC report on that was fraud, right? They rigged the gas tanks with explosives.

Well, what do you expect in a country where the courts rule the News has no obligation to tell the truth.

While they may very well have rigged it for the camera, the reality was there were multiple incidents where in a collision the person hit from an aft angle in front of the rear tire, the tank ruptured and sprayed gas onto the catalytic converter where it turned into a rapid oxidation process. The results were not good as typically there was a car wedged underneath the truck with an occupant in it. There is absolutely no structure there to protect the tank.

 

[N801BH]

Oh I think Ford might have some ideas about using Al in building stuff. Not just that, but you don't make this kind of major change to one of your flagship products without some serious engineering. Unless of course - you are Coke(for those that remember). lolz...

Ford builds some FINE aluminum racing blocks.....

 

[Hank S]

An engine block isn't an exterior body part. Don't want a car made like my plane, much less the bed of a truck that I load heavy and work hard (occasionally).

 

[Rotarywing]

Not a lot of structural engineers that comment here from what I can see.

Anyone want to bet on when GM and Chrysler goes Aluminium? (They will as soon as they catch up but Ford is way ahead of these two).

 

[Henning]

Not a lot of structural engineers that comment here from what I can see.

Anyone want to bet on when GM and Chrysler goes Aluminium? (They will as soon as they catch up but Ford is way ahead of these two).

From a structural engineering point, aluminum poses no real problems, some process you handle differently is all. Adjust your gauges and a few forming methods and done just fine. I do wonder how much of the truck is put together with adhesive though (not to be misconstrued as me saying that is a bad thing, it is not).

Chrysler already did an all aluminum chassis/body project with the Prowler. I doubt they will be far behind with a truck given Ford's experience.

 

[NoHeat]

Plastic beds would be better than aluminum. My Ford SportTrac actually has a plastic bed. I was skeptical at first, but 14 years later it is in great shape,.

 

[Jimmy cooper]

This is true. Many of my neighbors crawl over the speed bumps in their 4x4 trucks & SUVs, while I take my little Ranger over them at 15 mph. Won't hurt an F150 to go that fast, or more, but not here . . .

I have one aluminum vehicle (see avatar), and have no desire to drive one down the road every day. I don't always use my truck as a truck, but I do haul yard waste, firewood, topsoil, manure, gravel, bulky items, lumber, etc., periodically. Just Harry Homeowner stuff, really. It would be like keeping my plane outside and abusing it it every time I fly.

Just don't see the aluminum rears lasting 10+ years like my steel ones have (first truck sold at 14 years, second (small) truck going strong at 12, no plan to replace soon).

How does Ford protect against corrosion, both environmental and dissimilar metals? You know, aluminum bed to steel frame? Steel bolts through the aluminum bed surface? Spare tire hanger under the aluminum bed? It just moves the corrosion to use aluminum bolts for this, besides the need for more and larger aluminum bolts.

No thank you!! Ford can keep their aluminum truck beds, I sure don't want one.

Yeah.....your probably "right. " The DC3 s hauled more crap than your pickup could ever conceive and many are still flying 70 years later. include C46 also. Hopefully they studied this more than the Edsel.Buffalo airways has abused the floors of their aircraft for over 25 years!

 

[flhrci]

David, we've traded in 3 2014 Chevy High Country 4X4's this month, the highest mileage one was 7800 miles. Two of them were life long Chevy owners, not saying you'll like it, but don't drive one if you aren't ready to buy it.

I think it says a lot if people are trading that soon. Hmmm....

David

 

[flhrci]

Business is pretty decent right now, no where near the good old days but it's picking up!

Do you have a POA discount? Like a free can of soda pop for purchasing a new truck? LOL

David

 

[flhrci]

You and a few others, the price gap right now on a high end truck is $8-10K! With the price increase, more features and a small rebate on the 2015's the 2014's are a relative bargain!

So the price went way up when Ford went to aluminum?

Not good.

David

 

[Henning]

Plastic beds would be better than aluminum. My Ford SportTrac actually has a plastic bed. I was skeptical at first, but 14 years later it is in great shape,.

I think all body panels should be plastic. I remember when the Fiero was introduced, at the car show they had this demo with a 16lb bowling ball on a pendulum cable with a tugger winch to pull the ball all the way up to 90° then drop it into a door that was fixed there and bounce off. Replacing panels is cheap and simple. With 3D printing you can make custom one off body panels cheap.

 

[kgruber]

All the hoopla about an aluminum body, too bad the gas milage didn't go up as well. Still terrible.

 

[jhausch]

Henning - remember the fire at the Broward yard in the 90's? Many pools of melted AL after that one. Not sure about it burning.

 

[Henning]

Henning - remember the fire at the Broward yard in the 90's? Many pools of melted AL after that one. Not sure about it burning.

It really takes a concentrated "blue" fire to get the reaction. While some class societies classify aluminum as a 'class D combustible' it's not treated as one really. In general service and fabrication you are not going to start it on fire, and even then, only some alloys will burn. It takes a magnesium fire to get the aluminum to burn. Not all aluminum alloys have it, or enough of it. It really isn't an issue for all intents and purposes. Now when machining magnesium, then you had to have a bucket of salt or a class D extinguisher at hand and you had to keep the chips clear.

 

[docmirror]

An engine block isn't an exterior body part. Don't want a car made like my plane, much less the bed of a truck that I load heavy and work hard (occasionally).

There's a link way back in this thread where Ford secretly replaced a few steel truck beds in some industrial use trucks to see if they would fail. I don't recall where or when but the customer didn't even notice any difference in utility or durability. One of the best blind test ideas I've ever heard.

I'm pretty safe saying that Al is a better material overall for the application. Maybe there is a few corner cases for steel bed trucks, maybe there is a corner case where Al would not be as good but from a recreational, and light industrial consumer model Al alloy is just better. For the same reason we no longer line our trucks with wood beds, and converted to steel.

 

[docmirror]

Henning - remember the fire at the Broward yard in the 90's? Many pools of melted AL after that one. Not sure about it burning.

I don't have my chem properties book handy, but I think that Al won't ignite until the Ox environment is over 45% or something. Certainly far higher than atmospheric percentage. So yeah, on Earth in a really hot fire, it'll just puddle unless you get to the vapor point!

 

[denverpilot]

There's a link way back in this thread where Ford secretly replaced a few steel truck beds in some industrial use trucks to see if they would fail. I don't recall where or when but the customer didn't even notice any difference in utility or durability. One of the best blind test ideas I've ever heard.



I'm pretty safe saying that Al is a better material overall for the application. Maybe there is a few corner cases for steel bed trucks, maybe there is a corner case where Al would not be as good but from a recreational, and light industrial consumer model Al alloy is just better. For the same reason we no longer line our trucks with wood beds, and converted to steel.

Yeah, selling customers secret changes to things they thought they bought is a great business idea. No liability there.

Sounds utterly retarded. You guys do that in medicine too?

Hey you thought you were buying penicillin, but... We secretly swapped it...

 

[Henning]

There's a link way back in this thread where Ford secretly replaced a few steel truck beds in some industrial use trucks to see if they would fail. I don't recall where or when but the customer didn't even notice any difference in utility or durability. One of the best blind test ideas I've ever heard.

I'm pretty safe saying that Al is a better material overall for the application. Maybe there is a few corner cases for steel bed trucks, maybe there is a corner case where Al would not be as good but from a recreational, and light industrial consumer model Al alloy is just better. For the same reason we no longer line our trucks with wood beds, and converted to steel.

People have paid good money to have a teak deck laid in their truck.

I think the aluminum will work out fine in the end. I wonder if you save up your beer cans, if you can turn them into Ford and have them make you a truck?

 

[JHW]

Yeah, selling customers secret changes to things they thought they bought is a great business idea. No liability there.

Sounds utterly retarded. You guys do that in medicine too?

Hey you thought you were buying penicillin, but... We secretly swapped it...

I don't know about medicine, but in vehicle manufacturing yes, it happens all the time and is an invaluable tool. When a new fuel injector or hydraulic pump or whatever is about to be introduced you'll do an "in and out" engineering change to insert it into a few hundred units. Then you keep an eye on the warranty claims on those units during the production tooling changeover and ramp-up. It gives you an early warning as to any problems. There might have been some overly-dramatic press on this AL truck bed thing making it out to be something special. It's not unusual at all, in-and-out's are SOP.

 

[denverpilot]

I don't know about medicine, but in vehicle manufacturing yes, it happens all the time and is an invaluable tool. When a new fuel injector or hydraulic pump or whatever is about to be introduced you'll do an "in and out" engineering change to insert it into a few hundred units. Then you keep an eye on the warranty claims on those units during the production tooling changeover and ramp-up. It gives you an early warning as to any problems. There might have been some overly-dramatic press on this AL truck bed thing making it out to be something special. It's not unusual at all, in-and-out's are SOP.

Interesting. Wonder if one could demand a contract that they were not getting an in and out vehicle of one had significant enough coin to request such things. Of course at that much money, you could just buy ten of them probably.

 

[docmirror]

Yeah, selling customers secret changes to things they thought they bought is a great business idea. No liability there.

Sounds utterly retarded. You guys do that in medicine too?

Hey you thought you were buying penicillin, but... We secretly swapped it...

I'm not in medicine, but I don't see anything wrong with double blind studies being done there either. I think the word 'placebo' would be a simile for this situation? Drug efficacy in research is what gave us Viagra doncha know. Originally it was designed for some other use.

Don't know the details on the truck bed tests, but I think the company that actually bought and paid for the trucks were told in advance, but the commercial operators/drivers/users out in the field were kept in the dark, as it were.

 

[N747JB]

I'm sure it was a fleet customer, the owners would know, the drivers/operators wouldn't.

Yeah, selling customers secret changes to things they thought they bought is a great business idea. No liability there.

Sounds utterly retarded. You guys do that in medicine too?

Hey you thought you were buying penicillin, but... We secretly swapped it...

 

[JHW]

Interesting. Wonder if one could demand a contract that they were not getting an in and out vehicle of one had significant enough coin to request such things. Of course at that much money, you could just buy ten of them probably.

no, you generally can't. There is typically no visibility to such things in the dtstributor/dealer network. Running engineering changes of all kinds including in-and-out's happen all the time and the serial number break where they occur is often not determined until the parts hit the line. The only clue you might have down the road is that the part shows up as serviced by a different part number. Of course that could be due to 100 other things as well.

 

[denverpilot]

I'm not in medicine, but I don't see anything wrong with double blind studies being done there either. I think the word 'placebo' would be a simile for this situation? Drug efficacy in research is what gave us Viagra doncha know. Originally it was designed for some other use.



Don't know the details on the truck bed tests, but I think the company that actually bought and paid for the trucks were told in advance, but the commercial operators/drivers/users out in the field were kept in the dark, as it were.

Sorry wrong Doc. Haha.

That'd be okay. Fleet stuff.

 

[Hank S]

Yeah.....your probably "right. " The DC3 s hauled more crap than your pickup could ever conceive and many are still flying 70 years later. include C46 also. Hopefully they studied this more than the Edsel.Buffalo airways has abused the floors of their aircraft for over 25 years!

I didn't realize DC3s were built by screwing aluminum panels to a steel frame like trucks are. Also don't know of any owned and maintained by an individual, where appearance, cost and downtime are somewhat more important than to the US Army in combat, where a few shekels here and there, or a few airplanes less, is neglible.

How many planes have you seen with 10-year-old paint that look as good as cars with 10-year-old paint? Hangar queens and 30-hour-per-year planes don't count.

 

[mtuomi]

How many planes have you seen with 10-year-old paint that look as good as cars with 10-year-old paint? Hangar queens and 30-hour-per-year planes don't count.

Are you suggesting this difference is because of the metal used in construction?

Aluminum body parts have been in widespread use since the early 80's, and aluminum body structure cars since mid-90s. No problems whatsoever with corrosion or spontaneous combustion...

 

[Henning]

I didn't realize DC3s were built by screwing aluminum panels to a steel frame like trucks are. Also don't know of any owned and maintained by an individual, where appearance, cost and downtime are somewhat more important than to the US Army in combat, where a few shekels here and there, or a few airplanes less, is neglible.

How many planes have you seen with 10-year-old paint that look as good as cars with 10-year-old paint? Hangar queens and 30-hour-per-year planes don't count.

None of the problems are insurmountable, they just require attention to detail and using proper insulation and hardware coatings to prevent electrolysis. It's not like we don't know how to control these issues. The only really enduring issue is keeping paint on it in real service. I think they should sell them anodized.

One thing will be educating body guys and mechanics on using Duralac type thread insulator and making sure insulating washers are in place.