Torture Video: How Ford Tests The F150 To The Brink Of Death In 10 Different Ways


Torture Video: How Ford Tests The F150 To The Brink Of Death In 10 Different Ways
Let’s be brutally honest here, The F150 is the single most important product that the Ford Motor Company makes. No single vehicle in existence puts more money toward the company’s bottom line than the F series of trucks, especially the F150. It is an iconic piece of Americana and Ford has no margin for error in screwing it up. Seriously. The trucks sell in such high volume that any sort of manufacturing or design defect that resulted in a mass recall would be a financial shipwreck and the damage to the brand perception that would follow would be worse by 100 fold. To combat these issues from rearing their ugly heads, Ford tests the F150 to the extreme. Over the years we have heard about some of the “real world” testing they have done in the form of entering basically stock trucks with next generation mechanicals under current generation skin and other such feats of strength. The tests you are going to see below are designed and executed by engineers to push every different facet of the truck to its breaking point or to push it to the point where it doesn’t seem like it could be broken.
We actually think that the tests below are pretty interesting, especially the ones that simulate off roading situations that an impossibly small percentage of F150s would ever face. The fact that they perform these tests to validate that the truck will perform in similar circumstances is pretty neat. Also notice that the testing takes place all over the country. Some in Romeo, Michigan and others ranging as far away as Arizona. As much as simulations can be run on paper, getting out into the real world and actually hammering these trucks is the only way to really see if they’ll work or not. Scroll down to see the 10 Ford videos and their descriptions for an inside look at how the F150 is torture tested to the brink of death!

Seven-channel input: Ford built a special torture rack that violently twists and shakes the truck seven ways – simultaneously – for five days, simulating the equivalent of 225,000 miles. This testing isn’t random. After running a fully instrumented truck through durability courses, engineers recorded the forces the road surface put on various vehicle components. Those forces are replicated in seven channels – four up and down, two side to side and one lengthwise down the center. The frame and body are stressed to see how well the truck performs in situations that might bend the frame.  

Silver Creek: The famous Silver Creek durability course in Romeo, Mich., combines two extremely rough roads. One section of the route has 15 distinct types of chuckholes, while the other is made from broken pieces of concrete. Test drivers beg off this route after one pass because the pounding and speed is so intense. Imagine hitting a crater-sized pothole every five feet for miles – going 20 mph. With this road surface, 500 miles is equal to 20,000 miles on the country’s roughest roads.

Power Hop Hill: This washboard Ford test track in Romeo was created to replicate a steep, off-road dirt trail in the Hualapai Mountains of northwest Arizona. The severe 11 percent grade – steeper than the final section of most ski jump ramps – stresses engine and transmission components when the wheels lose contact and then return to the surface.

Drum drop: Ford engineers dropped 55-gallon drums into the bed of the truck on an angle, making sure all of the force came down on the sharp rim of the drum. Engineers in Dearborn, Mich., then measure the impact and make adjustments until the cargo box floor is suitably tough.

Corrosion bath: The 2015 F-150 is the first high-volume vehicle with a high-strength steel frame, and body panels made of high-strength, aluminum alloy – the same material used to make armor-plated tanks and navy warships. An advantage aluminum has over steel is that it doesn’t produce red rust. So Ford had to go beyond the usual tests that include driving vehicles through countless salt baths and soaking them in high-humidity chambers. The company developed a modified corrosion test using an acidified spray to be more aggressive on the high-strength, aluminum alloy. After simulating 10 years of exposure, the aluminum material showed virtually no signs of degradation.

Davis Dam: Run a half-marathon at Olympic-sprinter speed while carrying a 600-pound duffel bag in 120-degree temperatures, all up a 6 percent grade. Then do it 250 more times. That’s the Davis Dam durability route that stretches from just outside Bullhead City, Ariz., to the top of Union Pass. The F-150 climbed for 13 miles at posted speeds (varying from 35 mph to 65 mph) while pulling maximum trailer loads and running the air conditioning full blast in the heat of an Arizona summer.

Stone Peck Alley: There’s a special place in Romeo where paint jobs come to prove their mettle while testers work to protect the metal. To test paint for the all-new F-150, engineers drove the truck 150 miles over gravel roads, then another 150 miles over pellets of extremely jagged scrap iron that is first passed through a blast furnace. Oversized tires spray the stones and scrap iron at every surface of the truck.

Engine thermal shock: F-150 engines are first placed in a special cell and hooked to equipment, called a dynamometer, which simulates pulling a heavy trailer at full throttle up a steep grade.  Next, thermal shock testing takes engines from the coldest polar vortex to extreme heat in just seconds. The engine coolant and oil are quick-cooled to minus 20 degrees in as little as 20 seconds, then the engine runs at maximum power while coolant and oil temperatures stabilize, first at 230 degrees and then at 270 degrees, before being chilled again. This process is run 350 times over more than 400 hours to prove the durability of the engine block, seals, gaskets, cylinder heads and liners.

Rock and stop: Serious off-roaders navigate difficult terrain using the same drive/reverse/drive technique many drivers use to get unstuck from snow. Ford performs 500 aggressive starts on a stand specially designed to torture rear axles. The stand creates impacts at nearly 2,000 lb.-ft. of torque. This is more torque than the truck is capable of making – 130 percent more and then some – just to be certain the rear axle and all of its parts can withstand the abuse.

Twist ditch: F-150 customers need to trust their trucks in off-road terrain. The twist ditch is a set of parallel dirt mounds built to create a situation in which one front wheel hangs in the air while the opposing rear wheel leaves the ground repeatedly. Only two small patches of rubber are left to make contact with a slippery surface and maintain traction. These ditches can put incredible stress on the truck’s body and frame.


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2 thoughts on “Torture Video: How Ford Tests The F150 To The Brink Of Death In 10 Different Ways

  1. TheSilverBuick

    Brutal brutal tests for sure. The hill climb fully loaded in Arizona heat with A/C blasting is a brutal torture.

    I’m telling you the mining environment would make GREAT testing grounds. Our fleet of F-250 Super Duty’s are BEAT by 40,000 miles. Everything rattles, the weather stripping has long been ripped off from ice and frozen mud, usually at least one transmission and a couple hubs have been replaced. Rugged roads maintained for a tire with a 12 foot diameter make rough roads for a pickup. Our road grades average 10% and go as high as 12%-14% (OHC engines don’t engine brake for crap either…). Often the truck is holding around 1,000-1,500lbs of mud and dirt (we weighed a few trucks before and after a bath). Our air is thin at 7,000+feet, so the 5.4’s sometimes have a tough go on a half mile of 12% grade (at WOT and 30mph..). Hubs are perpetually in locked in mode, and automatic hubs are soon replaced with manual ones. I’m wondering when we might see some aluminum paneled trucks here (are the F-250’s getting the aluminum panels?) as we Mag-Chloride our roads for dust suppression and snow melting, and with the steel bodies, the paint has long been blasted off behind the wheel wells and rust quickly takes over.

    1. Anon

      Good points. The F-250 is not going aluminum for 2015, but may in subsequent years. It seems to me that Ford is getting real serious about their trucks and now that they have their diesels ironed out (much respect for the 6.7, it holds up well to military abuse) they are looking a lot stronger in the work truck market than GM or Dodge at the moment.

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