Popular Ford pickup truck missing parts, performs poorly in crash tests

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There was a thread on the OT about a month or two ago regarding a major car company outfitting only some models structural bracing knowing that the IIHS historically only tests the most popular configuration.

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Lacking those additional protective structures, the passenger compartment on the smaller SuperCab truck got crushed. Parts of the footwell were pushed back about a foot, resulting in a risk of foot and leg injuries. The SuperCab truck earned the Insitute's second-worst rating of "Marginal" in the test.

The Insurance Institute was originally going to test only the larger SuperCrew truck because that's the most popular version of the truck. After learning of the structural differences from other versions of the truck, though, the Institute decided to test the smaller version as well. In the future, the Institute will test more than one version of large pickups like the F-150, the Institute said.

When this crash test was introduced in 2012, the new F-150 was already far into development, Ford spokesman Mike Levine said. Engineers weren't able to design the extra front-end braces quickly enough for all versions, he said, so a decision was made to add them first to the four-door SuperCrew truck which accounts for a large majority of F-150 sales. The braces will be part of the vehicle's 2016 design.

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TL,DR: A major Detroit automaker got caught preparing only the models the IIHS would test for the crash test....leaving consumers who buy one of the many other variants of the vehicle with a dangerous product. The organization noticed the lack of structural bracing underneath some vehicles and re-tested....not surprisingly they got very different results.