Engineering trick or are these aluminum beds that crappy?


I generally do not buy into competitor testing as they usually just find a weak point that is not real world applicable but this video makes you question the strength of these aluminum beds.

 

I think it's good marketing by GM, find a weakness and exploit it. Ford does the same thing with their ads. I've got a BedRug no big worries for me.

 

Apparently they took the time and effort to discover that a very sharp pointed edge will puncture the aluminum bed floor. Interesting that those concrete blocks didnt break. I'm guessing they were engineered for the test. Chevy outperformed under that scenario. I have yet to hear of a real world instance of this type of damage though.

 

It's all banter. GM did that dirty ad for the Superbowl a few years back...Ford should've done the ad that they didn't take bailout money.

Maybe the aluminum isn't very thick in the bed... But how many people really drop that many concrete blocks in a truck like that? Ford won't disclose what alloy they are using in the trucks...and probably won't if you have to weld a hole in it or weld stuff to the bed. If I had to guess, it's 5000 series Aluminum Alloy.

Besides the F150 is safer in an accident a GM truck, so they can still suck it.

 

GM is so anti-aluminum that it is well known in the industry that they are converting to aluminum, too. They are just a few years behind and have to maintain sales until they can catch up with modern technology. When they do have aluminum beds they are going to hope that everyone has forgotten this ad.

 

That is excellent marketing.

It doesn't change my mind away from Ford though.

 

Absolutely correct. They've been selling the aluminum F150 for a couple of years now and I have never seen, on this forum or any of the other F150 forums, anyone who has punched a hole in their bed.

 

Excellent marketing on GM's part.
Maybe Ford should think about using steel in the bed.
That bed isn't what I would call "Ford Tough" If you use the truck for construction work I'd have a spray in liner and some sheets of plywood to protect the bed. Aluminum may have it's advantages but apparently using it in the bed isn't one of them.


It reminds me of the weak tailgate on the Tundra a few years back.

 

Or just make the spray in liner standard. Raise the price accordingly.....

 

Ok so the aluminum punctured right away. Big deal, we all know that steel and aluminum will react differently under various situations. That's no secret.

The GM will end up with rust holes in a few short years thanks to those bricks and the tool box drop.

If you're going to use your bed like that, then my question would be..... why wouldn't you have some type of bed protection product in there? This is regardless of the steel vs aluminum argument.

Years ago the options were limited, and quite frankly most of them sucked. Which is why years ago most beds didn't have any protection. They scraped, dented, and eventually..... rusted.

Today there are many great options, and pricing isn't much of a factor. Trucks need to be lighter, both for fuel economy and for load capacity. The bed has to change as a result. Ford stepped up first to aluminum. GM will follow in a few short years. As Mark said, they better hope this ad is long buried when the aluminum GM trucks debut, because you'll see the same results.

But to each their own. The automakers will have their own strategies for making their products look superior. In the end they all omit their own weaknesses. The key is what to recognize as marketing, and what to recognize as real world.

 

No spray in liner can handle that kind of abuse in the video, even for the GM steel bed.

A drop in liner would be the only way to protect against that impact.

That's why Ford will never make them standard equipment. Each bedliner has a different purpose.

 

We may have differing opinions on that.

 

The bed still dented in that video. You can clearly see it at the end. The spray in liner didn't stop that from happening.

They did say there was no "puncture" in the bed. I also noticed that compared to the GM video, the rocks were dropped from differing heights. Much lower in the Ford video vs the GM video.

You want to keep from denting the bed like that? A drop in liner will handle far more impact than a spray in, and distribute that impact further out from the point of impact than a spray in can. Again, different bed protection products are made for different applications. Spray in liners offer very little dent protection, but most drivers don't abuse the bed that way so most of the time it doesn't matter.

Get someone hauling rock like those videos, and a drop in liner is the only way to go if you want to best protect the integrity of the bed.

 

I think that's some good marketing. Find a weakness and brag about how yours stacks up in comparison. If I were planning on launching sharp-edged toolboxes into the unprotected bed of my truck I would have to pick the Chevy.

But I'm not, so I'll continue to be satisfied with my F150.

 

I punched holes in a steel bed years ago....... all comes to how you are going to treat the bed.