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2015 Ford F-150 Production Held Up By A Shortage Of Frames

It wasn’t too long ago that 2015 Ford F-150 production was failing to meet demand due to a shortage of labor. That issue has since been remedied by the automaker, but already a new obstacle has cropped up to stifle the aluminum-bodied pickup truck’s output: a shortage of truck frames.

Automotive News reports that frames for the 2015 Ford F-150, which are supplied by a Elizabethtown, Kentucky-based plant operated by Metalsa S.A. de C.V., aren’t being produced at a rate high enough to meet demand. That’s forced both 2015 Ford F-150 assembly plants to cut back on hours – one in Dearborn, Michigan, and the other in Kansas City, Missouri.

Beside being bad news for would-be 2015 Ford F-150 customers, there is some question of when the production shortage might begin to damage relations with the United Automobile Workers union. AN reports that previously, Ford had told the UAW it hoped to have the frame shortage issue resolved by Easter. Nearly two months later, the issue persists.

That’s upset some of Ford’s workers at both the Kansas City and Dearborn truck plants as it means that several overtime shifts have had to be cancelled. Ford’s Dearborn plant in particular has been unable to run any “Super Sunday” shifts, which pay double the rate of an ordinary work week shift. An unidentified worker told AN that a team of Ford employees was at the Elizabethtown supplier to try and help resolve the frame shortage.

But of course, it’s not as though the frame shortage is at all good news for Ford Motor Company, either. Last month, Ford CFO Bob Shanks said that a first-quarter production decline of 40 percent for the 2015 Ford F-150, and over 50 percent for the new Ford Edge, had detracted around $1 billion from Ford’s North American profits.

Aaron Birch is an automotive enthusiast and writer/filmmaker from Detroit, MI. As a rule, he only buys cars older than himself.

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