Buying a 2015 Ford F150? Get the Supercrew.

jtallon wrote:

In which case you could still choose the builder with the fewest RECENT incidents, or the least serious incidents. So Jeremiah still has a pretty solid case on avoiding Ford. I'd guess GM would be the most logical alternative.

Or Nissan if he's looking 1/2 ton.

You've exactly nailed why we can surmise Ford is guilty. They've likely tested with, and without it in their testing facilities. On all models.

When confronted with this discrepancy,how did Ford respond? If testing had showed no difference, they could have avoided the whole issue, immediately, with a simple statement. "Our crash testing showed no additional benefit to these devices when installed on Extended and Regular cab trucks." Show some basic crash test evidence, and the whole problem goes away. Immediately. Easy solution.

They didn't do that. We heard gibberish about optimizing for public domain (crash tests). That means they either didn't test (inexcusable). Or they tested, and already knew the unreinforced models would test poorly compared to the SuperCabs. Inexcusable.

There aren't any good excuses for Ford here, or we'd have already heard them.

You are forgetting the one possible explanation - the basic design sucks. I have a feeling that the reason the non supercrew models did poorly is because of that lack of B pillar. Especially since GM and Ram did away with that design. I'd bet that design has lots of weaknesses and that's why everyone else moved on.

If you really think that Ford or any other manufacturer is going to say "our newest vehicle has a design that sucks" then I have a bridge to sell you. That's why you get the mumble jumble about optimization. They could very well redesign the next one like GM and Ram where it's 4 doors and a smaller space in the back. That design seems a lot safer than the current design.

Whole lot of speculation going on here, including mine. And will be until we see whatever the redesign may be.