Colorado bent frame

[Floyd]

Different era. Engineering and manufacturing today are able to design these trucks so precise, compared to previous years, that they have very little excess capacity.

Crawl under your truck and take a close look at the boxed frame. It is made from thin gauge steel.

I was amazed when I installed the Shrockworks Rocksliders on my truck how easily the 1/2" dia. through the frame bolts would crush the frame if you didn't take care not to do so.

As others have said, these new Rangers will do the same thing if overloaded.

Don't overload the truck, no worries.

Greg's scenario seems plausible, If that is the cause then it is less the result of overloading than it is more akin to a rearend collision.
As for my truck? I'm able to keep it on pavement and generally intend to do so.
I don't believe that simply overloading the truck would cause that effect, Surely broken springs would normally come first.

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[HenryMac]

Greg's scenario seems plausible, If that is the cause then it is less the result of overloading than it is more akin to a rearend collision.
As for my truck? I'm able to keep it on pavement and generally intend to do so.
I don't believe that simply overloading the truck would cause that effect, Surely broken springs would normally come first.

Not a rear end collision, excessive weight on the rear hitch. Hence, the Colorado was overloaded.

 

[Floyd]

Not a rear end collision, excessive weight on the rear hitch. Hence, the Colorado was overloaded.

Maybe , but IMO more likely impact on the hitch as shown in your drawing.
More a result of dynamics than weight.
Either way your drawing shows the likely cause, especially when excessive speed is factored in.
Notice I said "more akin"

 

[P. A. Schilke]

Hi Folks,

Having Chassis Analysis for a few years I see a very familiar problem to some of our frame analyses. People talk about dynamic loading and this is certainly a consideration which we took into account in our analyses. What I see from my experience is a poorly placed oval hole in the frame side that resulted in a high stress area at the bottom of the frame that resulted in the section buckling outward and bending the frame. So, in my opinion there are two dynamics here. One is the frame was designed with a lower than needed factor of safety and the customer dynamically loaded the frame above the designed parameters. What caused the dynamic overload needs to be explained. I doubt GM made a mistake in loading as they do test to GVW and GCW just like Ford does... Was speed a likely factor...my opinion is probably...we do not have the full story and likely never will.

Okay, Another Back Story. We in Ranger Vehicle Engineering were informed about a vehicle with a right side frame rail cracked completely in half. The vehicle was a Canadian Forest Service truck and it had 30,000 miles (converted from KM). We were horrified....consulted the FEA analysis area and this area was not shown up as critical. WTF??? So when I got out of my office and my meetings I hurried down to the garage to look at this vehicle. I saw that it was cracked through the shock damper frame attachment and the the shocks were of a brand I had never heard...some Canadian suspension "tuner". So I had my Motorsports guy, not wasting my mainstreet engineers time) to get a pair of these shocks. We then tested these shocks and then fed the load analysis into our FEA model. What we learned was that the cumulative fatigue of the frame was over 4 times greater than the OEM Shocks. Okay...what does that mean. I will use the ubiquitous wire coat hanger...how many of you have bent one of these coat hangers back and forth until it snapped? Steel has a memory and it remembers when it is hurt. So after so many cycles it is hurt and fails. So aftermarket shocks on a off road duty cycle was the cause of this Canadian Ranger to fail the frame due to higher than evaluated loading. OEM shocks would likely not have produced a similar result.

In the case above, It appears there were many frame strike throughs...that is the rear axle hit the bump stops too many times and the frame yielded. In a way, why did it not bend up? Looks like the oval hole was below the centerline of the frame section. So who is at fault? I think the majority of the blame will be placed on the owner as GM stated. Oversized Tires...? not likely....towing at a speed to result in this...Likely the owner. Static loading is not the issue as was pointed out...it is the dynamic loading. See. We sitting in front of the computer in our share are pulling 1g...eh? This was above the 1g static tongue weight. Is GM to blame...to some extent they migjt have not use a needed factor of safety in their frame analysis...why? I do not know but likely they did not measure the current Colorado and used prior loading data which was not reflective of the current model or did not test at the speeds the owner used? Do not know...Only GM knows this answer.

Ford is faces things like this too, and we are not perfect, but we have a heritage of being "Ford Tough" which means our analysis criteria are to ensure events like this are few and far between. My job was to ensure the teeth in the message that "Ford Tough" really means something.

Okay...Rant over....

Best,
Phil Schilke
Ranger Vehicle Engineering
Ford Motor Co. Retried.

 

[JeffM]

Also remember that fatigue is really poorly understood, that's why in aerospace and offshore oil and gas you typically have to show a fatigue life analysis of 10-20 times the actual expected life. For example an offshore platform with a design life of 20 years would have to show a fatigue life analyses of 200-400 years. I remember sitting in meetings with my structural engineers and them arguing over whether low cycle fatigue actually existed, and if it did how much stain needed to be applied...not quite as bad as weather guessers but getting close.

 

[Zaph]

Not a rear end collision, excessive weight on the rear hitch. Hence, the Colorado was overloaded.

The problem is that the guy in the truck is not likely to be on the brakes at that point. He will only be on the brakes when both the truck and the trailer are going down hill. So the investigator's statement of the trailer lacking brakes was not a factor. If he had taken it to court he could have proven this to a jury.

What failed here is a dynamic loading of tongue weight and a limited safety factor built into it.

BTW, I've now seen a total of 3 Colorados bent like that. They have a problem. I've never seen a Ranger (old or new) or a Tacoma bent like that.

 

[Edd]

Also remember that fatigue is really poorly understood, that's why in aerospace and offshore oil and gas you typically have to show a fatigue life analysis of 10-20 times the actual expected life. For example an offshore platform with a design life of 20 years would have to show a fatigue life analyses of 200-400 years. I remember sitting in meetings with my structural engineers and them arguing over whether low cycle fatigue actually existed, and if it did how much stain needed to be applied...not quite as bad as weather guessers but getting close.

Am I the only one who finds this stuff interesting??

 

[HenryMac]

Also remember that fatigue is really poorly understood, that's why in aerospace and offshore oil and gas you typically have to show a fatigue life analysis of 10-20 times the actual expected life. For example an offshore platform with a design life of 20 years would have to show a fatigue life analyses of 200-400 years. I remember sitting in meetings with my structural engineers and them arguing over whether low cycle fatigue actually existed, and if it did how much stain needed to be applied...not quite as bad as weather guessers but getting close.

No way this was a fatigue failure. Again, it's a simple overload condition.

Take any newer truck, hook up a trailer and keep adding weight onto the tongue of the trailer, it will eventually do the same thing. You're trying to lift the front wheels off the ground.... by pushing down on the hitch.

The leverage being applied to the frame is tremendous. And where it failed is predictable.

The problem is that the guy in the truck is not likely to be on the brakes at that point. He will only be on the brakes when both the truck and the trailer are going down hill. So the investigator's statement of the trailer lacking brakes was not a factor. If he had taken it to court he could have proven this to a jury.

What failed here is a dynamic loading of tongue weight and a limited safety factor built into it.

BTW, I've now seen a total of 3 Colorados bent like that. They have a problem. I've never seen a Ranger (old or new) or a Tacoma bent like that.

He doesn't have to be on the brakes. Just the extreme angle of the trailer, in relation to the truck, can easily overload the rated hitch tongue weight.

 

[JeffM]

HenryMac, that is probably true, just overloaded.

 

[VAMike]

As I suggested way upthread, there's a difference between what's obvious and what's easy to prove. GM could look at the bent frame, assume that the guy was a dope who overloaded the trailer, and didn't want to deal with it. But proving that is hard because there's a good chance that someone in that position would immediately dump some weight out of the trailer before making a claim. So GM also noticed that the trailer wasn't configured properly and used the lack of brakes as an excuse to deny the claim without having to get into a fight over how much the trailer weighed at the time of the incident. There are probably internal documents discussing the load values necessary to break the truck, but the public statements aren't going to reveal those and were written by lawyers rather than engineers.

 

[weasel1]

The problem is that the guy in the truck is not likely to be on the brakes at that point. He will only be on the brakes when both the truck and the trailer are going down hill. So the investigator's statement of the trailer lacking brakes was not a factor. If he had taken it to court he could have proven this to a jury.

What failed here is a dynamic loading of tongue weight and a limited safety factor built into it.

BTW, I've now seen a total of 3 Colorados bent like that. They have a problem. I've never seen a Ranger (old or new) or a Tacoma bent like that.

Out of curiosity, do you have information on the other two Colorado's? I'm on a Colorado site as well (there's a 2017 Z71 parked beside the Ranger) and have only ever seen that one zr2 with the bent frame.

 

[Zaph]

Out of curiosity, do you have information on the other two Colorado's? I'm on a Colorado site as well (there's a 2017 Z71 parked beside the Ranger) and have only ever seen that one zr2 with the bent frame.

I just remember from nosing around when I was looking at trucks. I'm pretty sure I saw the one that was in this thread, this one I attached, and another one that was red I think. My search was something like "Chevy Colorado Problems" then google images.

Probably the only 3 bent Colorados in the world, but you can't unsee that stuff and not think of it, hahah.

 

[P. A. Schilke]

I just remember from nosing around when I was looking at trucks. I'm pretty sure I saw the one that was in this thread, this one I attached, and another one that was red I think. My search was something like "Chevy Colorado Problems" then google images.

Probably the only 3 bent Colorados in the world, but you can't unsee that stuff and not think of it, hahah.

Hi Zaph,

A bit of a back story on the Ford F450....we experienced frame cracking on trailer tow durability on the first year of offering the F450. so it as suggested to put a doubler frame insert in the frame only to find that the problem moved to the end of the doubler. It turned out upon analysis by my engineers that the the hole spacing and size mattered. We made changes. If you saw three of these bent frames, then GM has a huge problem on their hands unless the chose to ignore the problem, which may be the case. Do not know... We, Ford had a Transmission parking pawl issue and we got away with issuing a sticker that said to make sure the hand brake was set in addition to putting the vehicle into Park.....What a crock...

Best,
Phil Schilke
Ranger Vehicle Engineering
Ford Motor Co. Retired

 

[Deleted member 1634]

Hi Zaph,

A bit of a back story on the Ford F450....we experienced frame cracking on trailer tow durability on the first year of offering the F450. so it as suggested to put a doubler frame insert in the frame only to find that the problem moved to the end of the doubler. It turned out upon analysis by my engineers that the the hole spacing and size mattered. We made changes. If you saw three of these bent frames, then GM has a huge problem on their hands unless the chose to ignore the problem, which may be the case. Do not know... We, Ford had a Transmission parking pawl issue and we got away with issuing a sticker that said to make sure the hand brake was set in addition to putting the vehicle into Park.....What a crock...

Best,
Phil Schilke
Ranger Vehicle Engineering
Ford Motor Co. Retired

Yeah, like you hinted at, the easiest way to solve a problem like this is to put a sticker on it saying "don't do that thing" or "do this extra thing when doing that thing" and problem solved from a legal standpoint. I always hate when companies do that because it's such a cop out.

Maybe this truck was used incorrectly, or maybe it was used within the specified limits and encountered a scenario that was previously not considered by GM. Either way, a sucky scenario for the owner.

 

[HenryMac]

....... If you saw three of these bent frames, then GM has a huge problem on their hands unless the chose to ignore the problem, which may be the case....

Three? Out of the 790,235 second gen Colorado's / Canyon's that have been built? Nonsense.

Fact is if you overload the frame, via excessive loading, it will fail predictably. That's not GM's problem... because it's beyond the stated capacity.

Need more capacity? Then buy a truck with more capacity.

Personal responsibility seems to be lost in our society today.

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