I recently had an idea for a completely new (well kinda) feature that manufactures could start adding to their trucks and that’s rear steering. In the past 1-3 years, there have been quite a few new vehicles that have come out with rear steering. I say kinda new because GM offered this briefly between I believe 02-05 on their trucks and full-size SUV’s. It didn’t sell very well but I think that was directly due to the $4700 price for just that option. In the later years they dropped the price to $1000 but the damage to the stigma around it was already done so that didn’t help much so they dropped it. I think with modern technology allowing it to be done cheaper and better and they offering on far more models, they could add it for around $1500 or so.

My my idea is similar but with a few key differences. I think that they should make this system standard on all trucks and full size SUV’s (expedition, suburban, etc..) because that would lower the cost greatly and really help out the maneuverability of these large vehicles and they might be able to get the price down to just $1000 extra per vehicle. This could be made standard with almost no down sides because nothing on the body would have to change, just the suspension.

But I also have an idea to take it even further. What if they added full degree rear steer? What I mean by that is what if they make it so the rear can turn the same ~39 degrees that the front can? It would cut the turning radius of all of them in half. The problem with this is that GM’s rear steer in the past could only turn 15 degrees because of the wheel wells and you need to maintain at least a 48in gap between the wheel wells in the bed for cargo purposes. But what they could do is add wider fenders like on the raptor or the front of the f450 to both the front and rear and push the tires out to allow it to turn that sharp. It would add only 6in to the width, just like a raptor. This could possibly be offered on all trucks for ~$1500-2000 as an option. This could also do wonders for stability when towing because they could turn in the same direction when at high speeds as well.

So so would you pay $2000 and have a 6in wider truck for half the turning radius? I know I would.

here is GM’s old rear steer:
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It really wouldn’t be that complicated and would make turning that much better and could do wonders for high speed stability especially when towing.

I get your points. However the front axle on the current f550 has a gawr of 7000lbs vs the rear axle on a f350 srw of 7230lbs. They could easily make up that difference and put leaf springs on or go to coil if people wanted like ram.

the problem is the added weight of all that crap. It subtracts off the GAWR and decreases cargo capacity. You give up too much to gain very little.

Not seeing too many takers Boom...
Probably only practical for Big Foot, whose budget and mechanics have limitless parts and hours to spend...a daily driver with rear steering sounds like a nightmare to me.

haha yes so it seems. Just an idea I had. Wanted to see what others think. I personally really like it but it seems I am very much in the minority. Thanks for all the responses so far though.

I will say, like I said in my op, there are starting to be tons of models with rear steer and they keep growing in numbers. And they are “daily drivers”.