Down side to aluminum bodied F150

[BoylermanCT]

A Ford F150 owner sent his new truck through a local car wash, and one of the spinning brushes managed to snag the antenna, rip it off the truck and precede to hit the side of the truck with it. Total damage: $6,000. Aluminum body work is quite a bit more expensive than steel body work.

Drive-Through Car Wash Causes $6, in Damage on New Ford F-15 - Motor Trend

 

[MossRoad]

Ouch!

The article said it whacked the side of his truck repeatedly, but it only shows the gaping hole where it ripped it out. Anyhow, OUCH!

 

[sld]

That's what the lazy bum gets for not spraying it off himself.

 

[Bird]

I knew there was a reason they always take the antenna off my truck before it goes through the car wash.:laughing: I just figured it might damage the antenna; had no idea it could do something that.

 

[Streetcar]

Similar incident, I had previous driver go through with extension cord which tangled on the brush. I followed in my work truck, ford ranger. The cord did $2000 damage to hood and roof. Line of welts on truck. This was fifteen years ago

 

[Ford850]

This was posted on here a while back. I don't care what the body is made out of, if the spinning brush grabs and wraps the antenna around it like that then it's going get torn out. And then it gets whipped against the full length of the truck. Ouch!

 

[aczlan]

Several people in that thread mentioned that they had similar issues with steel bodied vehicles. Not sure on the difference in the repair bill, but its not going to be cheap when the brush rips out the antenna and beats it all the way down the side of the truck.
On the cost, if he had the BLIS (ie: "radar" in the taillights to look for cars back there and to look for cross traffic when backing out), those are around $800 just for the taillight.

Aaron Z

 

[Gary Fowler]

My previous employer had a company drive thru car wash for its fleet of vehicles and the same thing happened to a Ford Crown Vic. The rotating brushed grabbed the radio antenna and then proceeded to beat the car half to death with it. They put up a sign after that to remove all antennas.

 

[ray66v]

I did body work all my life, there has never been any question aluminum is less repairable, meaning panels need to be replaced more often, and more costly to replace, when you do that.

Ford's marketing campaign, pretending the part prices for an aluminum F150 are going to be the same, is an illusion. As they increase them to reflect reality, the repair costs will increase even more.

Some aluminum body parts have been used for decades. They have always cost substantially more, than the steel part they replaced, or a similar steel part.

Go buy a piece of raw steel, and a piece of raw aluminum, and do the math.

 

[2LaneCruzer]

I got hemmed in behind a flatbed hauling a bulldozer; sure enough a rock bounced off and broke out one of the fog lights on my wife's Millenia...cost? $300 for a fog light? It seems like it's all expensive anymore. P.S. the windshield actually cost less to replace.