'Gotta hand it to Ford...

[Chucks Stude]

High strength steel frames are not fixable either. I have seen quite a few trucks in the body shop to have the frame replaced. This is nothing new. And all of the guys who are putting these ginormus brush guards on their trucks, are doing nothing but transferring the effects of a wreck directly to the frame. The system was not engineered that way. My .02 worth.....

[qsanford]

I think that it will burn cleaner. A nearby Mass. Jaguar dealer had a fire and the news report showed some burned out hulks that the most identifiable parts were the engine blocks! I think they were aluminum bodied XJ6s.

[Hawklover]

Plus 1...........................

C'mon...aluminum is simply another auto technology...just as fiberglass once was. Electric and hybrid technologies have also had their proponents and detractors but are still being used and hopefully improved with use and time. Whether Ford's use of aluminum to this extent in trucks will eventually be proven or disproven as practical remains to be seen.

As with fiberglass, flexible bumpers and body panels, air bags, etc., body shops will adjust, receive the necessary training and equipment or they will either go under or become smaller, specialized shops for older technology repairs and restorations.

[Hawklover]

LOL big time Bahahahahahah

What is 'bowered'?

[Gunslinger]

C'mon...aluminum is simply another auto technology...just as fiberglass once was. Electric and hybrid technologies have also had their proponents and detractors but are still being used and hopefully improved with use and time. Whether Ford's use of aluminum to this extent in trucks will eventually be proven or disproven as practical remains to be seen.

As with fiberglass, flexible bumpers and body panels, air bags, etc., body shops will adjust, receive the necessary training and equipment or they will either go under or become smaller, specialized shops for older technology repairs and restorations.

[Bob Andrews]

Bob Palma: Please give me the date when Ford Automotive division paid off the $23 Billion they bowered back between 2006 and 2007.

What is 'bowered'?

[52 Ragtop]

All good points! But, here's the "Collision Industry" prospective!

Equipment cost WILL go up, we will need to have a "clean room" for aluminum repair, additional schooling, yes, Ford will teach the dealers employees for a small fee, but other collision shops will pay full pop for training. All tools used in aluminum repair will be used ONLY in aluminum repair. So, a tech (or the shop) will need to have an aluminum only tool box with tools.
Having worked in a shop that specialized in BMW's that's what is required.

As far as frame rail repairs, BMW's have had aluminum frame rails for a good number of years, once damaged, they are NOT repairable! and you can't weld aluminum to steel! So, they are glued and pop riveted to the body. Special 2 part epoxies, and of course special rivets (both from BMW) at a cost of $1.75 each for the rivets, (takes about 75) and a tube of epoxy $55.00) that adds to the cost of repairs, which a shop will pass along to the owner or insurance co.
Also an aluminum only welder too.
Labor rates for aluminum repair will also be about $15-$20 an hour higher. Somebody needs to pay for all the equipment and training.

As long as one never has a collision, then you'll be OK! There will also be a LOT more parts replacement going on, there are procedures for aluminum repairs vs steel repairs.
It's going to be interesting!

Jim

[Hallabutt]

Come on guys, some of you are treating the use of aluminum as something revolutionary. More power to Ford for putting forth the effort, but the fact is that aluminum has been used for bodies in the auto industry for a hundred years. Premier, Peerless, Lincoln, Franklin, and Hudson all used aluminum over wooden framing and Pierce Arrow was noted in the teens for use of cast aluminum bodies. Even though the alloys used were no where close to the quality used today, cars built of this material have held up no less well then cars built with sheet steel. There are ninety year old cars being restored today with their original aluminum bodies still intact. In more recent years trim pieces in particularly corrosion prone areas like wheel well moldings, running board and rocker panel trim, and hubcaps have all survived at least as well as the steel to which it was attached.

I don't know about repair costs, but I can't believe that aluminum, with the proper equipment and technique, would be much more expensive to work then today's thin hard sheet steel. Aluminum should also be cheaper to recycle and be more sot after by recyclers so more should be reused.

I am not a Ford guy but I drive Fords. I like rear wheel drive personal luxury cars, and full framed, full sized, rear wheel drive, four door cars. When the rest of the US auto industry switched to front wheel drive cars Ford was the only viable option. While it took a while for the industry to regain their senses and begin to offer rear wheel/all wheel drive products, I was able to drive my ageing Ford products. Reliability became an unanticipated benefit as my 1994 Lincoln Mark VIII and 1996 Thunderbird have had no major problems in spite of their 170K and 240K mileage, and still going strong!

[benaslopoke]

Aluminum panels are not new for production cars and trucks. For those of you who don't know better, GM, Ford and Chrysler have been using aluminum hood and roof and other panels on selected models for at least 15 years. The sky didn't fall then and it won't be an issue for Ford. As Bob mentioned, Ford has been supplying entire bed assemblies in aluminum for a while, too. Do you really think they would change a major item without some real world data to support it? If your body man can't work on aluminum, find a better body man.

I had forgotten, as I usually do these days, but when I was parts manager at a Chevy dealership in Jacksonville, Fl. in the early 80's.. The city had ordered a big fleet of Malibu's and they came equipped with some aluminum panels and aluminum cylinder heads and other engine parts.. After these cars reached a specific mileage, we were told to replace ALL of the aluminum parts, sheet metal, heads, everything for factory inspection.. On a different subject all of the cars had to be changed from their 3:73 axle ratios and sent in also..

[Warren Webb]

NOTHING says they won't use replacement steel body parts which will be cheaper than aluminum; not to mention the paint prep work will be presumably cheaper with steel. Body shops that use offshore replacement panels are price-shoppers as it is, and know the consumer won't care what it is made of as long as the paint on it is shiny and matches the adjacent panels.

Craig

Being my association with body shops for 50 years I think I can speak with some degree of authority. "Some" body shops may be price shoppers but the real culprit is the insurance industry who dictate more every day not only what will be used in a repair but now, who you will purchase said parts from. State Farm is taking the lead in this department.

One important point will be their interpretation of "like kind & quality" parts. An imported part from a third world nation might stamp out a part that appears to do the job but in time, it's function becomes suspect. Case in point: I knew of a Nissan Z car that had its hood replaced with an aftermarket part. The area where the hood latch connected was not only thinner, but it's substandard welds broke in time causing the hood to fly up & damaging the roof & windshield. They have no requirement to crash test or corrosion test their offerings. The only thing offered is a CAPA label saying the part is certified by the organization formed by the aftermarket companies. Their assurance of quality only goes as far as fit & even then, parts that previously certified are removed from their list!

Now to the case of what Ford is doing. Will the insurance industry still go with the cheap offshore sourced parts? At first most likely not. I do wonder though, if they will require shops to have their "recycler" to pickup the aluminum parts that will be replaced instead of the shop doing that & recouping some of the money they have lost due to the gorilla insurance companies & their stranglehold on insured's. Of course the aftermarket only applies to fast moving items, mainly front end sheet metal parts. Ford has made a bold move in this regard especially on their most profitable & largest selling product. Others would have done this possibly on a much smaller scale with less risk or visibility. Time will tell.

[Hawklover]

Next to Studebaker I bleed Ford blue, and have put my money where my mouth is for over 50 years.......love Ford, love their stock, love the F-150, and love "skunk-ops".oh, and btw, no Ford of mine was ever " F(O)nd-on-the-(R)oad-dea(D)!

Apparently, you haven't had very much experience with Ford products over the years Bob.....That's OK...Stick with Studebaker!

[BobPalma]

Aluminum panels are not new for production cars and trucks. For those of you who don't know better, GM, Ford and Chrysler have been using aluminum hood and roof and other panels on selected models for at least 15 years. The sky didn't fall then and it won't be an issue for Ford. As Bob mentioned, Ford has been supplying entire bed assemblies in aluminum for a while, too. Do you really think they would change a major item without some real world data to support it? If your body man can't work on aluminum, find a better body man.

Right, Jim. I wish they had shown more of the bed floor toward the end of that video, after they had been hauling rough-cut rock in it all day. You get a pretty good look at the bed floor for only a few seconds around 3:46, and it doesn't look bad at all, considering the wholesale abuse it got all day.

A good test would have been to have a steel-bed Chevrolet (or Dodge or Toyota or Nissan) hauling the same rock under the same conditions the same day; same number of trips, same weight, etc.

Then they could have washed out the beds, all of which would have been terribly beat up, for comparison. I'll bet there wouldn't have been much difference, if any, based on what we could see of the Ford bed late in that video.

I'll admit to being favorably impressed. BP

[Packard53]

Fords total debt is actually $117 Billion right now which is a growing concern to some investors and other auto people in the know in the auto industry. My post started out saying FORD AUTOMOTIVE DIVISION the figures I gave only concerned the product division not the financial division of Ford. If what I have stated about the $23 Billion dollar loan are not correct then I am wrong. However I certainly didn't make up the figure of $9.5 billion or the statement that in 2011 or 2012 they had repaid roughly half of the $23 billion.

What the heck do you mean (you should relay check them before you post.)

In my life time Ford has been on the brink of going out of business three times
John S.

A bit of fact check..

You should relay check them before you post..

From Motley Fool February 4, 2013

http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2013/02/04/do-you-understand-fords-debt-because-youd-better.aspx

"It started two years before the great recession, when Alan Mulally was named CEO of Ford. One of the first things he accomplished was receiving a large loan to assist the troubled automaker with capital needed to turn the company around. Mulally described it as "a cushion to protect for a recession or other unexpected event." It wasn't easy to secure the $23.4 billion dollar loan, as Ford had to put up its heritage, its prized Blue Oval logo as collateral. If you're keeping score, that makes it: Mulally/Ford 1; rest of Detroit 0. Having this cushion gave Ford the maneuverability to avoid the government bailout. That said, $23 billion is no small amount of debt to have on the financials.

Last year (That makes it 2012!) Ford wiped the last of the pre-recession loan and was rewarded by receiving investment grade once again. This is where some of the misconceptions begin. People hear the large 2006 loan is paid off, yet still see around $90 billion in total debt. Let's take a quick look at the ratios of how that compares, and explain why it doesn't matter, and that Ford's high debt level is actually good for investors."

Which they go on to clarify, that like GE, Ford has a Product group and a Financial group, where the largest portion of the debt is in the Financial group, Like GE!

During the GM/Chrysler bailout, Ford asked for a 9-billion line of credit, which it did not use, and received 5 billion loan from the energy department for retooling and pledge to build more efficient cars.

If you need facts about financials, you should read financials and not a one-way-or-other leaning rag..

[jlmccuan]

Aluminum panels are not new for production cars and trucks. For those of you who don't know better, GM, Ford and Chrysler have been using aluminum hood and roof and other panels on selected models for at least 15 years. The sky didn't fall then and it won't be an issue for Ford. As Bob mentioned, Ford has been supplying entire bed assemblies in aluminum for a while, too. Do you really think they would change a major item without some real world data to support it? If your body man can't work on aluminum, find a better body man.

[SScopelli]

Bob Palma: Please give me the date when Ford Automotive division paid off the $23 Billion they bowered back between 2006 and 2007. If I am correct between 2011 and 2012 they had repaid about half of the $23 Billion. As of a few days ago their outstanding debt was about $9.5 Billion.

John S.

A bit of fact check..

You should relay check them before you post..

From Motley Fool February 4, 2013

http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2013/02/04/do-you-understand-fords-debt-because-youd-better.aspx

"It started two years before the great recession, when Alan Mulally was named CEO of Ford. One of the first things he accomplished was receiving a large loan to assist the troubled automaker with capital needed to turn the company around. Mulally described it as "a cushion to protect for a recession or other unexpected event." It wasn't easy to secure the $23.4 billion dollar loan, as Ford had to put up its heritage, its prized Blue Oval logo as collateral. If you're keeping score, that makes it: Mulally/Ford 1; rest of Detroit 0. Having this cushion gave Ford the maneuverability to avoid the government bailout. That said, $23 billion is no small amount of debt to have on the financials.

Last year (That makes it 2012!) Ford wiped the last of the pre-recession loan and was rewarded by receiving investment grade once again. This is where some of the misconceptions begin. People hear the large 2006 loan is paid off, yet still see around $90 billion in total debt. Let's take a quick look at the ratios of how that compares, and explain why it doesn't matter, and that Ford's high debt level is actually good for investors."

Which they go on to clarify, that like GE, Ford has a Product group and a Financial group, where the largest portion of the debt is in the Financial group, Like GE!

During the GM/Chrysler bailout, Ford asked for a 9-billion line of credit, which it did not use, and received 5 billion loan from the energy department for retooling and pledge to build more efficient cars.

If you need facts about financials, you should read financials and not a one-way-or-other leaning rag..