[xoxoxoBruce]

I heard that, plus they were offering to pay up to $10 grand to help dealers and some big bodyshops tool up and train for aluminum. Then last night I came across a blurb on some site that says they backed down, but for the life of me I can't remember where. Nor can I verify it's true.

Aluminum is great, light weight, won't rust, blah, blah, blah.
BUT that means when the truck eventually ends up in the junkyard from an accident or old age, the aluminum parts are too valuable as scrap to let them languish in the yard till somebody needs one.

So you'll have to be on the spot, and generally when I need a part from the yard, they scrapped the load of them the day before, so on the spot is out. That leaves new parts from Ford and that's big bucks to keep an old truck running.

They haven't said a lot about rust prevention but touting a 700 lb weight reduction, better mileage, green green green. Yeah well you could save 700 lbs or more by not building pickups the size of the fucking Titanic.

There is a legitimate purpose for the big F-350, F-450, F-550, F-650, Super Duty, Dually, Diesels, with GVWR of up to 37,000 lbs. But it sure ain't for taking the kids to school or towing you 1500 lb boat.

Even the F-250, which are like fleas on a dog, four door, long wheelbase is 172 inches. That's over 14 feet between axles. Plus the damn things easily go more than $50,000 all duded up. For $50 grand you could buy a nice new car that would do the car stuff and a pickup the size that was common in the 70's and 80's which will do all the truck stuff you need.

So switching to aluminum to save 700 lbs, is a joke. It's driving the ownership cost up, and It's make more money while trying to squeak the Titanic by the CAFE standards. It's not entirely Ford's fault as they are responding to market demands. Bullshit, demands they created with hard sell.