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UPDATE: Replacement Body Panels Prices For the 2015 Ford F-150 and Ram 1500 Differ Dramatically

As you may already be aware of, the 13th-gen Ford F-Series is laden with strong aluminum alloys. Even the truck bed is made from the military-grade material, but did you know that spare body parts are hideously more costly than those of a Ram 1500 truck?
2015 Ford F-150 1 photo
Photo: Jeffrey Ross
I’m not taking sides here, but employing this type of material over A36 mild steel takes a toll on these things. In a material put together by Hannah Lutz for AutomotiveNews, we’re told that $1,020.95 is how much a Ford body shop will charge you for a 2015 F-150 Crew Cab XLT model’s front door. Not joking.

To put that price into perspective, the same body panel costs $854.93 for a 2014 model year. That is quite a big difference between generations. If that wasn’t enough of a shock, you might want to know that $545 is how much a 2014 Ram 1500 SLT’s front door costs. Additionally, a door costs $475.92 for a 2014 Chevrolet Silverado 1500 in LT guise and $869.50 for a 2014 Toyota Tundra Crewmax. Need I say more?

It’s ludicrous how much money an owner needs to spend in order to repair a 2015 F-150. That’s $166.02 over a generation! If you happen to need a new fender, that’s $354.78 for both the 2015 and 2014 model year. However, only $179 is the price for one that fits the 2014 Ram 1500 SLT. In the previously mentioned publication’s report, the same pricing trend applies to replacing the hood.

Of course, there is a good reason why F-Series replacement parts prices have gone up with the 2015 model year. First and foremost, aluminum is harder to form into a body panel than steel, and secondly, this material requires special repair techniques, equipment and training. Last but not last, I need to mention that labor costs haven’t been taken into consideration by the aforementioned report...

UPDATE: Mike Levine, Ford Motor Company Truck Communications Manager, reached autoevolution and informed us that "in most cases, #2015F150 exterior parts are priced identically to the outgoing 2014 F-150." Check the attached image in the tweet below for more information:

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About the author: Mircea Panait
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After a 1:43 scale model of a Ferrari 250 GTO sparked Mircea's interest for cars when he was a kid, an early internship at Top Gear sealed his career path. He's most interested in muscle cars and American trucks, but he takes a passing interest in quirky kei cars as well.
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