LATEST FROM THE PICKUP WARS

GM fires anti-aluminum salvo

One day after Chevrolet released a series of videos that “poked holes” at Ford for using aluminum on the beds of its F-150 pickups, the online jury of pickup owners has ruled Chevrolet in contempt — but a metallurgist and a leading maker of truck beds say General Motors was right to point out the superiority of steel for truck beds.

“What moron would drop cinder blocks from four feet into a new truck bed just to prove a point?” came one of the more reasoned comments from a discussion on PickupTrucks.com. “By the looks of the background, they could have budgeted for a tandem trailer. It’s sounding like Chevy Desperado.”

Hundreds of commenters on other truck forums agreed. Few truck owners would drop materials from any height into a pickup bed the way the ads do — and most owners who spend $50,000 on their trucks, even commercial users, will add some sort of inexpensive bed liner, even if it’s a sheet of plywood.

A reader said 95 per cent of truck owners use some sort of bed liner, making the test meaningless. The reader added: “I wonder if GM will compare beds and rocker panels from rust states in three years?”

But David Michaud, an engineer who runs 911Metallurgist out of Kamloops, B.C., says steel being better for something like a truck bed should not be surprising. To resist impacts, the aluminum would have to be thicker, which would make it heavier and negate using it in the first place, he said.

Michaud said Ford must have decided fuel economy was more important than durability, suggesting the company should have done more testing in commercial settings where “these guys are not always wearing pink gloves.”

Marland Pruitt, the technical adviser for sales at Oklahoma-based CM Truck Beds, agrees. He says his firm often removes the factory aluminum beds on new Ford trucks and replaces them with steel.

In the Chevrolet videos, about 55 landscaping blocks are dropped into the beds of both the Silverado and the F-150 from a height of 1.5 metres. In 12 trials, GM says the Silverado received only scratches and dents, while the F-150’s bed was punctured every time.

A second test simulated a heavy tool box accidentally falling into the bed from the truck’s side rail. The Silverado dented 12 of 14 times, with “pinhole” punctures in two trials. The F-150 bed punctured 13 times and dented once.

GM’s Sandor Piszar said the campaign was aimed at communicating Chevrolet’s “advantage” over Ford, not to dish dirt at its rival. One commenter agreed, noting a hole from a tool box is “subpar.” The commenter added beds are made to be roughed up and in “realworld situations like a heavy bike on a kickstand might not do so well with thin aluminum.”

Sarcasm quickly followed: “This is actually very good advertising for Chevy. Anyone dumb enough to use their truck like that should buy a Chevy!”