Today priced a new 2014 Lariat 4x4 SC, 145"with 3.5 EB sticker price $51,160 discounted to $42,023 plus $1000 Amazon gift card.
If they would have went 1 penny below $40K I would take it home.
Taking my chances and waiting for the 2015, salesman pushed back telling me I will never get a 2015 Lariat for that price.

Thanks PUTC ! you turned me into an excessive new truck freak!
gotta take the Colorado for a test ride
gotta take the Colorado for a test ride
gotta take the Colorado for a test ride
gotta take the Colorado for a test ride
gotta take the Colorado for a test ride

Great video. There is also a few things that people are over looking with the F-150. The ease of repair-ability, and cost of doing so. They didn't spend billions in retooling just to be lighter. The way the vehicle is assembled is for longer reliability and easier repair-ability. Most of the truck was designed so that if it was in an accident the cost of the new design and aluminum wouldn't cost as much to repair.

This is called sectioning. Sections (not the frame) can be removed and riveted/spot welded and secured further with a high strength polymer. Some people have an opinion that isn't based on first hand experience and are listening to people create reviews that may or may not be biased. It's an exceptional vehicle, it handles very well and preforms much better than I anticipated. ( All of my comments are based on driving, testing and hands on comparisons in similar conditions as this article.) Think long term. Who knows where the aluminum body can lead in another 10 years. It's a step in the right direction. It may lead to aluminum cars as well..... who knows. It truly could lead to amazing things.

LOL Ken sure is funny.

"Ford, on the other hand, spent $359 million and lost 10 weeks of production this fall when it converted its Dearborn, Mich., F-150 plant from steel to aluminum for the 2015 model. Early next year, Ford plans to make the same expensive switch at its Kansas City, Mo., truck plant.

GM can quickly and inexpensively roll out the welding system to its assembly plants, Reuss said.
Only minor changes are required to production equipment. Liquid cooling lines must be installed to keep special copper welding tips at the proper temperature.
A machine that resurfaces the copper welding tips also is required

GM has been granted nearly 20 patents for its aluminum welding technology. The key components are the copper caps and the circles scribed into them by the resurfacing machine.
Each cap lasts for about 4,000 welds. They are resurfaced after every 50 welds until they wear out. GM spends less than $1 for each cap."

http://www.autonews.com/article/20141124/OEM06/311249975/as-ford-spends-big-gm-joins-aluminum-with-simple-welds

Its looks like Ford loves to blow their money. We'll see Ford asking for a bail out in another 5 years.

Fire in truck spreads at Phoenix auto repair shop.
1:36 p.m. MST November 29, 2014

"An auto repair shop caught fire Saturday after flames that had erupted from a truck inside spread to the rest of the building, a fire department official said.

Phoenix Fire Department crews responded within minutes to the fire at AZ Restomods near 15th Avenue and Interstate 17 and initially battled the flames from inside the building, Phoenix Fire Captain Ruben Saavedra said.

The flames eventually spread to the building's attic, forcing the fire crews to continue their attack from outside, Saavedra said.

The business' owner, Gary Ross, said there were three mechanics in the building when a Ford F-150 truck caught fire and all managed to get out safely.

The oil in the shop accelerated the spread of the flames that later consumed the building and caused part of the shop to collapse. The business was a total loss.

No one was injured in the fire."

http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/phoenix/2014/11/29/phoenix-fire-auto-repair-shop-abrk/19663773/

@Ken,
Polymer is made from two ancient Greek words. Poly, meaning many and Mer, molecules.

So what we now have is a very long molecular adhesive?

The way you described the repair of the 'sectionalisation' of the body is the current method employed in many body shops repairing steel vehicles.

I do think most repair to the F-150 will require fasteners more so than an adhesive.

Adhesives will work well if the two mating surfaces are flush. But most body damage creates irregularities and distortions that are hard to straighten out.

I'm currently sharing a place with a aircraft structures engineer. We have discussed this new Ford at great lengths. His words are Ford have made a very courageous move with the new F-150.

Just welding in repairs will only be a short term fix with aluminium. The welding of aluminium makes the material more prone to stress fracturing, ie, the onset of cracking will be faster than that of welding steel.

Aluminium is more prone to stress fractures than steel. I'd bet we will start to see stress fracturing in parts of the F-150 within a few years.

A rigid chassis with little flex should reduce the frequency of stress fracturing.

I do believe after some years of using aluminium, panel beaters or body shops will become more accustomed to working with it. It isn't like working with steel, it is more time consuming and expensive.

@johnny,
Cheaper isn't better.

With all due respect, I'm going to give a company that has spent 20+ years researching aluminum the benefit of the doubt here.

If Ford saw benefit in spot welding aluminum in only one area (the cross-members of the truck bed), I'm going to go out on a limb and trust their engineers, their metallurgists, and their manufacturing engineers, over those employed by a company that to this date has not produced steel bodied vehicles that hold up as well as Ford's.

I mean, think about it: When was the last time you got into a ten year old GM and thought, "Wow, this vehicle has held up *much better* than a ten year old Ford"? And we're supposed to believe that this company has somehow figured out how to fabricate more durable bodies than Ford in aluminum?

Come on. They have to demonstrate excellence in a much easier to work with material first.

I don't know if aluminum welding would be that advantageous over rivets and adhesives, the only advantage I see is that GM
could change over to aluminum with less disruption by keeping existing work stations and constructional process.

Surface coatings on aluminum have now enabled superior adhesive bonding, much was made of this before release of F150 with Ford wanting Alcoa to extend its coating process to to lower tier suppliers. So while rivets and adhesives are a major part of the change to assembly process, I have a hunch that the processes and work flows with aluminum, enables Ford to actually speed up the process through stamping and body shops.

Recently, Pioneer has mentioned new advantages in spreading work fronts by making sub assemblies in the pressing area before the major assembly takes place in the body shop - I think that is key to increasing scales of efficiency in Ford's process and probably why GM has issues with switching to aluminum construction at the moment...

GM is trying to change by doing the minimum, maybe that helps in the short term but perhaps it does not solve other choke points that already exist, something Ford looked at and added as part of the change.

Sometimes total commitment requires letting go of everything established in a safe manufacturing process and doing
what seems, unnecessary, impossible and maybe insane to established industry wisdom and culture.

As Pioneer said:

About why Ford didn't weld, I can only repeat what I've heard.

When the parts were steel, they would have a coating of oil on them to help the stamping process. You can't use that oil with aluminum because then the adhesives wouldn't stick. You would have to dip clean the stamped parts before assembly.

We use another substance to lubricate the part. In order to weld, that substance would need to be dip cleaned off the part before assembly. Either way you would be looking at a major process change and cost.

Riveting is stronger and has better NVH properties as well. And, just to clarify, there are a few welds in the new truck. The bed floor supports are welded so when you haul things in the bed, the rivit heads don't get damaged.

"Liquid cooling lines must be installed to keep special copper welding tips at the proper temperature."

And I don't understand. GM wasn't previously cooling their weld tips? That's bad news. You can get weld failure from that.

Source: Pioneer (works for Ford)

@Dave Their are tons of 10 year old GM trucks that look better then 5 year old Ford trucks. Open your other eye would yah!

Pretty sure riveting would be easier, cheaper, and more reliable than welds. Also much much easier to repair. In many cases it should be easier to repair than steel.I have experience with both welding and rivet repairs on aluminum steel and plastics. The risk in switching to aluminum is way overblown. It will almost certainly be an asset and not a liability, as is the case in almost every application of aluminum vs. Steel in other industries. All the talk about aluminum repairs is overblown as well. Its not like making repairs to the body of a vehicle is a regular occurrence for most people. I have owned many trucks put to use on a farm and have only ever needed one repair to the body of one pickup.

Rivets and adhesives are stronger then spot welds.
http://youtu.be/kmwY3EATCPc

The problem with riveting in lightweight material especially aluminium is the stress set up by drilling the holes and localised stresses at the rivets.

The rivets also accelerate the onset of corrosion and will follow the path of the stress in the material. You can surface finish a component to reduce the onset of corrosion.

But, if the aluminium is managed correctly it will last as long as steel.

The use of aluminium will not make for a weaker structure and it will not make for a stronger structure. It will only save some weight.

Aluminium will save around 40% of the weight over a traditional metal body it replaces to maintain the original integrity of the structure.

High tensile steel will have a weight savings of around 35%.

So the difference between them is small.

Any folding, bending or stamping of aluminium components will need to be stress released via an annealing process, which isn't a necessity for steel. This is especially true of the 6000 series aluminium that is being used to manfacture the F-150.

The process Ford is adopting is mainly a bonding process for the joining of the structure with the use of some fasteners.

The Alcoa bonding process is for Ford only and other auto manufacturers are complaining that they should have access to this technology. So, currently whatever Chev is doing will not be what Ford is doing.

On TTAC a "Ford" staff person stated that the Ford has a large amount of "fasteners" required for it construction. I don't know if this is the case or not.

If Ford is using a large amount of fasteners then maybe the Alcoa system for bonding might not be to successful.

HEMI V8
I just read your post about F-150's catching on fire that got me worried.
My 2013 F-150 has been to the dealer 3 times with my complaint about a burning smell coming from the heater vents when I first turn on the heat or ac blower fan.
I know what an electrical burning smell is.
Also when its really cold my blower fan doesn't work or works slow then after the truck warms up it runs at a normal high speed.
The dealer replaced the resistor , didn't correct the problem.
I asked them to replace the blower motor and they refuse cause every time they have the truck it doesn't imulate the same problem.
I am worried that my truck is going to catch on fire when im driving it and I will die from the flames.

all the so called aluminum experts (rolling my eyes in my head) never talk about the expansion and contraction of aluminum.
its basic elementary information that aluminum is much more sensitive than steel on expansion and contraction with heat and cold.
the so called experts get to pick and choose all the good points and leave out the bad about aluminum.
What is going to happen to the aluminum body when its -20 below outside and its 85 degrees inside the cab of truck? Are the doors going to expand and stick shut? Are the rivets going to come loose?
That constant pulling of the metal upon heat and cold will pull something loose, how will the glue react upon extreme temps changes?

On that video that fat guy interviewer didn't ask the right questions cause he had no basic education about metals, should of had Lou BC there asking the questions

Some auto technicians in the Northeast don't think these trucks will hold up in the heat/cold and salt in the long run. The difference between high dollar imports and the F-150 may well be the conditions in which they are used. Nobody takes a luxury car off roading in the snow.

Personally I think ford is wasting their time with aluminum as the mpgs aren't much better and ford are almost certain to have teething problems with this new truck, but Im no expert but hasn't the land rover defender been aluminum since day dot and they seem to last (well the body anyway) for decades being used by militaries, NGO and African wildlife parks in harsh conditions, can anybody tell me if the new f150 is manufactured in the same fashion ?

everybody seems to pass over the simple-basic things and get into complicated discussions about aluminum that nobody understands.
The basic simple thing is you can't mix steel and aluminum together. Like a guy at a muffler shop will tell you can't use a steel muffler clamp on a stainless or aluminized exhaust cause that pipe will suck the steel from that clamp and eat right thru the pipe.
My concern is where the aluminum body meets or touches the steel frame of the truck, nobody can answer that (or ignores it cause they know the answer)
As in the video they do install a steel plate between the dash and the aluminum body for sound deadening , I just want to know if maybe Ford has that steel coated with a sealer so it doesn't react by touching the aluminum body?

#Tom3: The problem with your argument is that aluminum aircraft have been doing exactly that for 70 years--operating at temperatures from desert 100°F+ to sub-arctic -50°F with passengers riding at a comfortable 70°F or so. The wide fluctuation in air pressure inside causing stress fractures was their biggest issue, not thermal expansion/contraction. As was stated long ago, Ford is using assembly techniques similar to building a commercial airliner, so those issues are inherently covered.

@Tom#3 - The aluminum hoods on 2014 (and older) F-150s are bolted directly to steel hinges. Nothing in between except paint.

Cabs are always rubber donut mounted (or fluid dampener), as is the 2015 F-150 cab. There's never a direct metal to metal contact anyways.

Easier and cheaper repairs should also translate to lower insurance costs.

Was that big fire be caused by an
aluminum & iron oxide thermite reaction?

Many industries put dissimilar metals together.... Not sure why it will be a problem for the auto industry to put dissimilar metals together.

you guys will believe anything anybody tells you

How many experts here know more than a multi billion dollar company that's been building vehicles for well over 100 years with engineers who actually attended universities?

Most corrosion when using aluminium with dissimilar fasteners start in and around the fasteners.

Areas of stress are also set up around these fastners which accelerates the corrosion process.

One of the biggest issues I see with the aluminium body is the lack of knowledge by repairers in the use of materials that are at the ends of the galvanic table.

Ford will manufacture the vehicle with reasonable protection against corrosion. But the guys servicing and repairing your vehicle will cause the most damage.

A completely new cultural awareness is needed by all Ford maintenance and service tradesman.

Even using an aluminium hood on a steel truck can and does cause issue with the dissimilar metals in the bolt fastener and the aluminium to steel connection.

You can never stop corrosion.

Corrosion will also develop in a piece of metal. If you look at the alloying material in the aluminium there will be alloy particles present in it's pure form.

What this does is allow for an anode and cathode arrangement to develop between the two material.

For corrosion to occur you will need three elements. You need oxygen as the oxidiser of course, you need a path for the ions, generally in the form of moisture. You will also need contaminants in the form of an mineral, ie, dirt, grim, etc.

Once these three things are in place a path has be created for the flow of ions. What occur then is the aluminium reverts back into it's natural state. When this occurs it expands in volume 10 fold.

To stop this you need to have a surface finish. The surface finish remove two to of the three element that allow for corrosion. That is the moisture and contaminants to exist on the alloy.

So, more fasteners and a poor surface finish equates to more corrosion.

I have many miles of aluminum pipe on my farm that is bonded directly tto galvanized steel ends on every fifty foot section. There is no paint or protective coating other than adhesive. This pipe is exposed to negative temps in the winter and 100 degrees in summer. It is filled with water while being suspended in the air on wheels every 50 feet.. It is rolled multiple times per day in 1/4 mile long sections from one center point over large rows of potatoes, up hills, etc... These pipes last 30 years in these conditions with stress fractures being rare until they are very old or damaged by tractors etc. The aluminum in these pipes is also thinner than the sheet metal used on vehicles http://www.nelsonirrigation.com/products/application/wheel-line I have a hard time seeing corrosion being a problem on the f150. The corrosion resistance is actually a huge advantage if it is properly built and repaired.

"I'm going to go out on a limb and trust their engineers, their metallurgists, and their manufacturing engineers, over those employed by a company that to this date has not produced steel bodied vehicles that hold up as well as Ford's.

I mean, think about it: When was the last time you got into a ten year old GM and thought, "Wow, this vehicle has held up *much better* than a ten year old Ford"? And we're supposed to believe that this company has somehow figured out how to fabricate more durable bodies than Ford in aluminum?

Come on. They have to demonstrate excellence in a much easier to work with material first."

- BINGO. Do GM's or even Chevy's last 10 years anymore? I'm not talking the powertrains, I'm talking everything else. The interiors are usually shot within a few years. Worn out seats, cheap broken plastics, gages that quit working. The frames are rusting badly within year 1 because they won't e-coat them and instead use cheap wax. And I haven't seen a GM or Chevy body built post 88-98 era that hasn't turned into a rust bucket pos within 5-6 years. GM's and Chevrolet's have the Worst reputation for build quality in the industry now. Powertrains aside.

@BrianL., GM's and Chevy's are notorious for bed rot. Aluminum will be a strong selling point in the north. These issues have been Well documented since the GMT-800 model. The problems continued with the GMT-900 model. I wouldn't touch a brand new K2XX model with a 10 foot pole. They have the same rust issue on the frames brand new on dealer lots today. There's absolutely No Doubt that your brand new 2014/2015 Chevrolet will look exactly like the photo linked directly below over the rear wheel wells by the time a 4-5 year loan is paid off. And (so called) high strength steel cannot be fixed. The Entire bed has to be replaced. At least GM saw fit to put plastic molding protection on their GM Sierra. Chevrolet customers got screwed. Tin foil rustbuckets is their legacy now.

http://www.carcomplaints.com/Chevrolet/Silverado/2007/body_paint/clearcoat_and_paint_problems.shtml

http://s818.photobucket.com/user/JimSmith1955/library/?sort=6&page=1

http://forums.edmunds.com/discussion/9900/chevrolet/silverado-1500/chevy-silverado-and-gmc-sierra-undercarriage-rust/p5

http://www.gm-trucks.com/forums/topic/119648-acorn-damage/

What moron would buy a GMC truck after the 1990's? Even the Chevrolet's went into the toilet. Fools and their money are soon departed I suppose. These clowns are too busy trying to pimp 2 trucks. Why not try sticking money into making 1 good one first? GM can't even make a bumper last 6 months these days let alone the rest of the truck.

http://forums.edmunds.com/discussion/9692/chevrolet/silverado-1500/chevy-silverado-and-gmc-sierra-rear-bumper-rust

http://www.gm-trucks.com/forums/topic/124161-rusty-front-bumper-after-only-3-months/page-5

Want to see how fast aluminum corrodes? Look at the back of a stop, yield, speed limit or other road sign. Probably unpainted aluminum bolted to a galvanized post. Once aluminum oxidizes the process stops, unlike steel. Especially the ultra thin high strength steel.

There are millions upon millions upon millions of powerline strung that have been there for several decades that is ACSR which is sluminum conductor, steel reinforced. Which is stranded steel wires woven into a core and then aluminum strands is woven around that steel core. There doesn't seem to be corrosion between the steel and aluminum in the wires that are exposed to the harsh enviroments for decades and has never been washed or waxed or kept in a garage...

@Johnnie Doe - I asked this question the other day and the fellow doing the same cut and paste as you never answered -

Is Chevy planning on welding dissimilar metals i.e. aluminum skin to high strength steel?
If that is the case how does the technology work?

The reason Ford is using rivets and adhesive is due to the fact that it is extremely difficult to weld aluminum to steel.

Conventional spot welding doesn't actually work very well if at all (and what you describe is spot welding).

But if that is the case, is GM planning on an aluminum body with and aluminum structural "cage"?

@Lou_BC,
This is a practice used in construction.

The pieces are more or less "vulcanised".

In construction a machines similar to a large portable drill has attached to the steel material via strong magnets.

The aluminium stud or whatever is placed in the "drills chuck".

The strong magnets prevent movement of the machine and the drill spins the aluminium component until is has melted and connected with the steel.

I don't know how successful this technique is. I did see this demonstated during a trial on a video.

It seemed to work.

For the two dissimilar material to corrode you need the three elements like I stated above. It similar to firefighting with the three elements needed to sustain a fire. You do fire training being a first responder?

If there isn't moisture or contaminants to be in the moisture you will not have corrosion.

I do think that GM will use adhesives like most other manufacturers a heading. Welding creates stress and stress accelerates corrosion.

If people aren't aware the stress allow the corrosion to follow the grain boundaries in the material. When this occurs you will end up with a "terminal" form of corrosion. It's called intergranular corrosion, which is inside the material.

This then develops into exfoliation of the material.

I haven't seen my 99 S 10 fall apart like some of the comments have stated nor the interior fall apart. Sure there are some rattles and squeaks so I should be disappointed. Washing and waxing a vehicle along with keeping the undercarriage clean will keep rust down on any vehicle. I would even do those things even if I had an aluminum body F-150 but then I would rather take care of what I have. I don't have that much to complain about on GM as with any other brand that I have owned but then I am not a paid marketer that is planted on a site to spew propaganda. I am a consumer first and not a paid marketer. After a while most people ignore paid marketers as they ignore telemarketer calls. I would rather read the articles on this site and draw my own conclusions.

GM says they invented aluminum to aluminum welding. Lol.

Ford welded the hoods on the 2004 to 2008 trucks. We went to rivets for a reason. Better bonding. And you have to retool anyway. The weld controllers are different.

http://www.blueovalforums.com/forums/index.php?/topic/57795-as-ford-spends-big-gm-joins-aluminum-with-simple-welds/

This was written by Richard Jensen and posters at BOF, much more on the topics at the link above:

With all due respect, I'm going to give a company that has spent 20+ years researching aluminum the benefit of the doubt here.

If Ford saw benefit in spot welding aluminum in only one area (the cross-members of the truck bed), I'm going to go out on a limb and trust their engineers, their metallurgists, and their manufacturing engineers, over those employed by a company that to this date has not produced steel bodied vehicles that hold up as well as Ford's.

I mean, think about it: When was the last time you got into a ten year old GM and thought, "Wow, this vehicle has held up *much better* than a ten year old Ford"? And we're supposed to believe that this company has somehow figured out how to fabricate more durable bodies than Ford in aluminum?

Come on. They have to demonstrate excellence in a much easier to work with material first.

----------

I don't know if aluminum welding would be that advantageous over rivets and adhesives, the only advantage I see is that GM
could change over to aluminum with less disruption by keeping existing work stations and constructional process.

Surface coatings on aluminum have now enabled superior adhesive bonding, much was made of this before release of F150 with Ford wanting Alcoa to extend its coating process to to lower tier suppliers. So while rivets and adhesives are a major part of the change to assembly process, I have a hunch that the processes and work flows with aluminum, enables Ford to actually speed up the process through stamping and body shops.

Recently, Pioneer has mentioned new advantages in spreading work fronts by making sub assemblies in the pressing area before the major assembly takes place in the body shop - I think that is key to increasing scales of efficiency in Ford's process and probably why GM has issues with switching to aluminum construction at the moment...

GM is trying to change by doing the minimum, maybe that helps in the short term but perhaps it does not solve other choke points that already exist, something Ford looked at and added as part of the change.

Sometimes total commitment requires letting go of everything established in a safe manufacturing process and doing
what seems, unnecessary, impossible and maybe insane to established industry wisdom and culture.

Who is Richard Jetsen?

The Ford rep points out near the start of the video when they are looking at the door pillar, that at the factory the rivets are installed so fast that they actually weld the material together, but then goes on to say that when a repair is necessary, the repair shop will simply rivet the material together. This infers that no high speed riveting machine will be used by repair shops, thus no high speed rivets to weld the replacement pillar in place such as at the factory. So in this instance, is the truck repaired back to factory specs or not ?
They then go on to discuss how repair shops will have the option of repairing floor panel cross members either with rivets and adhesives or welds. Which body shop are you going to want to take your F150 to for repair and who decides which repair method is used-you or the shop? Which method would make you feel more comfortable? They can say the repairs will be structurally identical but if that's the case, why the need to weld material at the factory at all? Some interesting things for car dealers to consider when its time to trade in your repaired Ford-will one repair garner more dollars for your trade than the other? Congratulations to Ford, the engineering behind their new trucks is impresssive, however, time is going to tell if they were right or not.

@Jason:

Georges Brother. He's banging Jane behind George's back while Rosie and Astro watch.

God after reading all these hilarious con artist opinions on aluminum it's even funnier that GM will spot weld its Trucks. LOLOL Anyone with any kind of metallurgy back round knows the rivets and glue are much stronger way of manufacturing Aluminum. Look at Jumbo Jets and planes hahaha. Today's glue is insanely strong and rivet's I believe will be marine type like on a boat! Structurally the body is more ridged than the outgoing and is getting better crash ratings. Now who here would rather drill out rivets or grind and cut welds!!! Think before your post a BS story. HemiV8, you failed to Mention that truck was not a 2015...what a douche bag you are!!!

wanting to know how hard it will ne to find a repair shop in country living, not the big city, but as in the state of maine. wouldn't want to have to drive hundreds of miles to find a repair shop need an answere to that as I am considering getting a new 2015 ford 150