Less than 10 percent of the more than 30,000 independent repair shops in the United States are certified and meet training and equipment requirements to work with most aluminum auto body parts, according to an estimate by Darrell Amberson, chairman of the Automotive Service Association. While some dealerships do in-house body work, independent businesses handle the vast majority of collision repair in the United States, he said.
Ford is betting buyers will accept what it estimates will be a 10 percent jump in costs to insure the pickup in return for improved fuel economy, towing and payload. Ford must also get the aftermarket industry up to speed as it debuts the highest-profile vehicle to swap aluminum for heavier steel, long the industry's material of choice.
"You don't get any more mainstream than the F-150," Amberson, who is also vice president of operations for LaMettry's Collision Inc. in Minneapolis, said in a telephone interview.
Insurance companies charge less for coverage of the outgoing F-150 compared with the competition, Doug Scott, Ford's truck marketing manager, said last week in an interview from the company's stand at the Detroit auto show.
"At the end of the day, that's sort of a wash," he said. "We've spent a lot of time and feel very comfortable that that's not going to be an inhibitor."
Aluminum's memory
Repair shops need separate hand tools for aluminum and steel such as wire brushes, grinders and sanders, because corrosion can happen when dissimilar metals come in contact with one another. The auto body repair industry also has less experience with differences in how aluminum springs back from impacts compared with steel.
"Aluminum has a very poor memory and it resists straightening attempts," Jeff Poole, a coordinator for I-CAR, a collision-repair industry training organization, said in an April 2013 webinar. "Experience really pays dividends here, and this is where we've got a learning curve ahead of us."
Ford's internal data show that 90 percent of customers live within two hours of a capable repair facility for today's F-150, and 80 percent are within 30 minutes, Ford's Scott said. Buyers of the aluminum-bodied F-150 will have the same access by the time it arrives in dealerships late this year, he said.
"We've just been waiting for the reveal to unveil a certification process for dealer-owned body shops and the independent channel," Scott said.