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I bought a 2015 Ford F-150 XLT this past July. At this point it has about 4,600 highway miles on it.
A couple of weekends ago I was slowly traveling across a field and heard a loud bang. There were about 10 lbs of tools in the bed. The next morning I discovered that the sidewall of the bed had pulled away from the floor between the passenger side wheel well and front wall
.
I could see through to the ground and that two fasteners had failed. There was also a symmetrical dimple directly above the failed fasteners.
When I brought it into the dealer they agreed that this was a structural issue that was covered under the warranty.
Shockingly Ford has twice denied the claim, this is not over....
I've come up with some observations after reading this thread:
Something hit that part of the bed, causing the rivets to distort. A good sized hammer could cause that on any truck if it was flying across the bed at 30mph.
You're purposely lying about the size of the unsecured load in the bed of your truck and now want somebody else to pay for your f-up.
Those are not spot welds, those are rivets that can be easily drilled out and re-riveted in the event that the truck needs a new bedside after an accident.
This is not a structural issue, this is the issue of something large & heavy slamming into the side of the box and bending metal. Contrary to popular belief, aluminum is not indestructible and does bend when stuff slams into it.
This would happen to a steel truck.
And then there's the: "They don't build 'em like they used to bleghbleghblegh" Nonsense. No, They don't build them like they used to. They're built with a much higher standard of quality now, the difference is that in the '70's trucks were cheap so nobody gave a crap if the bed separated. Nowadays trucks are much more expensive and people aren't going to treat a $50k pickup the same as a cheap 70's truck. They also didn't have the internet in the 70's so people couldn't come online to complain about wind noise.
Could trucks from the 70's tow 12,000lbs, haul 6 people and offer enough luxury and creature comforts to keep the whole family comfortable, all at the same time? Nope. Argument invalid.
It looks like a heavy unsecured cargo like a cast iron tractor weight or something like that has slid across the bed and slammed into the side causing the damage with a slight dent above the separated area; which wouldn't be covered by the warranty. But, only 10 pounds of tools wouldn't or shouldn't cause that. It's hard to tell from photos.
From the photos it looks like impact damage. Were the ten pounds of tools in a box? If so I can image that the box of tools could easily cause the damage. And I can easily understand that the dealer would side with you and let Ford be the bad guy. But I will have to side with Ford and advise to take a hammer and dolly and pound it back into shape and replace the fasteners. Oh and tie things down, in case of a major accident your ten pounds of tools could have become a lethal projectile impacting you, your passengers, or someone else.
It is obvious it didn't pull away it was knocked apart and loud bang and the dimple [AKA dent] says something hit it pretty hard. Don't blame the truck blame the driver who was going "slowly" off road with Unsecured cargo in the bed.
Years ago I was on a fire department rushing to a call. I took a corner at a stoplight, hard right, and stomped on it. The box of cinder blocks I had in the trunk kept going. First dent the shop had seen coming OUT of a vehicle...
Well that sucks. It sure doesn't look like much holding those pieces together that's for sure, built Ford tough and can't take a small impact without tearing apart? Of course I too would have to say the impact of something isn't the trucks fault and shouldn't be covered by warranty. I suggest hitting it back in shape with a big hammer and tig weld some aluminum in there and call it a day.
11-09-2015, 11:35 PM
Aluminum failure
