View Poll Results: Fix the fleetside or swap to a Flareside
Fix the flat fleetside!!
3
60.00%
Do it! Swap to a Flareside!!
2
40.00%
Voters: 5. You may not vote on this poll
Poll: Fix or swap bed
Thread Starter
Bleeds Ford Blue
Joined: Nov 2008
Posts: 770
Likes: 406
From: J-Town, NJ
Poll: Fix or swap bed
So early August last year I was pulling into work when some numpty with the construction company doing work on the street drove into me with his old steel bumpered Super Duty box truck. He had been stopped and blocking our mini "off-ramp" of sorts - no amber beacons on, no four ways, nada, just sitting there blocking me. So I swung wide and he caught me in the driver's rear quarter. The bed is damaged from the trailing edge of wheel arch back to tailgate. Somehow the taillight escaped harm. The bodyshop quoted me $2400 and after fighting with the construction company's insurance got $1900 out of them. They originally weren't going to pay, then I sent them the security cam footage from our building and they changed their tune.
I posted in a thread a few days back that I disliked the styling of the 04-08 Flareside beds saying it "looked like an afterthought instead of the nice planned out style of the 97-03's". I had an 03 Flareside and loved it. Now though after looking at more pictures of the 04-08 beds and knowing they'll fit my '14 (very rare '09 Flaresides exist) I'm considering junkyard hopping to find a nice used bed that I can buy and get painted for less than the repairs of my fleetside bed. Seeing as both previous Explorers and the three F-Series trucks I've owned before my current Blue Flame STX have all been the rough and tumble kind of builds I've decided to switch up my style on this truck and go with a sport truck theme. As such I'm looking at is as the Flareside bed would be kinda (little kinda) be like making a Lightning (I may go FI someday). Ultimately I know most of you will say "Your truck, your choice" but i'm still curious about thoughts on this. Keep in mind as it's an STX it's all one color and no chrome. Bumpers are same color as body.
Fleetside. Just flat sheetmetal (or aluminum) with a few body lines thrown in to break it up a bit.
Flareside - and no mine wont be that high either, I've already yanked the 1" ford lift blocks out of the rear on my truck and honestly am probably going to go a bit lower than that.
I posted in a thread a few days back that I disliked the styling of the 04-08 Flareside beds saying it "looked like an afterthought instead of the nice planned out style of the 97-03's". I had an 03 Flareside and loved it. Now though after looking at more pictures of the 04-08 beds and knowing they'll fit my '14 (very rare '09 Flaresides exist) I'm considering junkyard hopping to find a nice used bed that I can buy and get painted for less than the repairs of my fleetside bed. Seeing as both previous Explorers and the three F-Series trucks I've owned before my current Blue Flame STX have all been the rough and tumble kind of builds I've decided to switch up my style on this truck and go with a sport truck theme. As such I'm looking at is as the Flareside bed would be kinda (little kinda) be like making a Lightning (I may go FI someday). Ultimately I know most of you will say "Your truck, your choice" but i'm still curious about thoughts on this. Keep in mind as it's an STX it's all one color and no chrome. Bumpers are same color as body.
Fleetside. Just flat sheetmetal (or aluminum) with a few body lines thrown in to break it up a bit.
Flareside - and no mine wont be that high either, I've already yanked the 1" ford lift blocks out of the rear on my truck and honestly am probably going to go a bit lower than that.
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Joined: Jun 2015
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From: FL