I don't mind some of the cons of the aluminum shell. I plan to get one of these in the next year or so. A higher spec'd XLT to pull a trailer. Can't justify the luxuries of the Lariat, though the 360 camera is nice.
The front ends are fugly... Really bad.I've seen that a lot over the years, the new model tries to emulate what people did to the old model after buying it. I can kinda see the logic I guess.
The front ends are fugly... Really bad.
The front ends are fugly... Really bad.
That's subjective. The one I built up on their site was black, with black rims, sport appearance package (deletes all of the fugly chrome for body color trim) and extensible mirrors looked pretty good in my book.
Trucks were still trucks twenty years ago. They looked it too. Everything sinse Dodge decided to make a mini-semi and the other guys started scrambling to catch up and one-up each other has been progressively more comical looking. Every single one of them. They have become a pop culture joke, and everyone knows it imo.
The price difference between aluminum parts and steel parts is almost nothing. You're talking material cost. That's it. There's no difference in manufacturing.
I agree with him about the front - I think they ARE pretty fugly. It's over-designed and over complicated to my eye. Removing the chrome helps, but I still like the looks of the ram:
The ford still blows the chevy away though - this is god awful and reminds me of designs 20 years ago.
Not true, there are a number of differences. It's still quite energy intensive to produce high quality aluminum out of bauxite (aluminum ore) compared to steel making. Exposed body panels (like in the F150) require high surface quality, and you can't get that out of scrap. So each melt is about 30% scrap with the rest being higher quality aluminum ingots.
Aluminum and steel making have similarities, but the cost to produce the same part of either material is NOT the same... and the people who claim otherwise seem to be getting their info from sources outside of the metal making industry. That said, steelmaking has been around a lot longer and has had a lot more refinement to its process to make it what it is today. Aluminum isn't as cheap yet, but it can get there (and most likely will) as time goes on.
I'm in NY - vehicles rust out very quickly up here, due to all the road salt. I wonder if the aluminum sales are doing better up here?
You just agreed with me you know..... that's all material cost =).
Aluminum can corrode too...I wonder if these vehicles will rust quickly in ways they never imagined.
You can't get rid of rust once it has started. Ever. Oh, you can cut, you can grind, you can weld, but the rust will come back. An aluminum bodied vehicle will look just as good 10 years from now as it does today (or at least as well as you would expect paint to look after 10 years in the sun).
The repair infrastructure is not yet fully in place to perform certain types of aluminum repairs, that is what makes repairing these pickups more expensive. The shops that can afford to be early adopters of the expensive tools required will want to recoup their investment. The tooling will become cheaper and more plentiful in the future, but right now it is what it is.
Also, to say that a pickup truck body is not structural just because it rides on a frame is very wrong. All components of the passenger safety cage are considered structural, as are many front inner structure components which act as collision energy management.
I've read that the F150 with aluminum still weighs as much as a similarly equipped GM truck and the improvement in gas mileage isn't much compared to a V8 GM truck with its cylinder deactivation. I know my 2014 Sierra with the 5.3L V8 gets 21-22MPG on the highway. I typically get 19-20 combined. Ford uses turbos and aluminum to maybe squeeze out 5% more efficiency, but I just don't see that being worth the extra expense as a buyer.
FWIW, GM is developing aluminum body work for their next generation truck. I think that is where everyone will be at in the next decade. I'd really like to see them work on space efficiency. The inside of the engine bay has huge openings. The grill sits out about 1ft past the radiator. The dimensions of the truck aren't in line with the usable space.
Personally, I think the current GM trucks are the best looking on the market, which is part of the reason I bought mine.
I've read that the F150 with aluminum still weighs as much as a similarly equipped GM truck and the improvement in gas mileage isn't much compared to a V8 GM truck with its cylinder deactivation. I know my 2014 Sierra with the 5.3L V8 gets 21-22MPG on the highway. I typically get 19-20 combined. Ford uses turbos and aluminum to maybe squeeze out 5% more efficiency, but I just don't see that being worth the extra expense as a buyer.
FWIW, GM is developing aluminum body work for their next generation truck. I think that is where everyone will be at in the next decade. I'd really like to see them work on space efficiency. The inside of the engine bay has huge openings. The grill sits out about 1ft past the radiator. The dimensions of the truck aren't in line with the usable space .
Personally, I think the current GM trucks are the best looking on the market, which is part of the reason I bought mine.
Yes, and with a name like "crashtech" who are we to argue.
One of the things body shops often need to do to repair a vehicle is basically to stretch the vehicle so that all four wheels are where they need to be. It's more involved that that, of course, but the fact is Al does not handle flexing very well. A steel piece may be bent then rebent to the original shape and the steel may not suffer much loss in strength. Al, on the other hand, will far more likely break when being bent back. Forming or reforming Al is far more complicated than steel.
Brian