WHY BED DOSEN'T LOOK STRAIGHT!

[Boatswain]

On 3-5-04 I posted the question "BED NOT STRAIGHT?". A factory rep looked at it to see if they could figure out why it was looking this way. After he looked at it he told me that the driver's side bed body panel was not stamped out the same as the passenger side bed body panel. He said even if we order you a new bed from the factory it would most likely be wrong too. It would seem to me that G.M. could care less about quality control or customer service! After him telling me this I called customer service at 1-800 number. Will let you know what happens.

[mark45678]

are you talking about it being a little narrow at the tailgate? Gm truck are about 1 1/2" wider at the head bourd the gate end..... they have been this way since the 99 body change and the 88-98 truck I think where 3/4 " off from end to end.... the 72- 87 truck where the same on both ends!

[Boatswain]

Mark, I know about the bed tappering back. The bed is 63&3/4" at the front and 62" at the tailgate. These are inside measurements. The Rep told me it was the body panel. It seems to be this way on some of the shortbeds, all the longbeds I have looked at seem to be o.k. If you have a short bed check it out. Another thing to look at is the taillight. On the driver's side it does not fit into the body as well as the passengers side does.

[dmaxmule]

Boatswain, I know what you are talking about. I saw my first example of this while driving on the highway. Passanger straight drivers side look several inches wider up front.

You know how 2500 & 3500(single wheel) 4X4 have a wider trac up front. It looks like the drivers side body panel slants along the same line. It does not look good.

IT SCARES ME seeing how I got a 2500 HD CC SWB 4X4 ordered. However, I did see one at the dealer the other day that did not look to be this way. I hope I am lucky with mine.

[Scott Duprey]

Speaking about GM truck beds being skunk, my composite bed is cracking and have been told by GM tecks that there are lots of them out here in cold climates. No fix. 2K out of my pocket to fix my 50k truck.

I am not very happy right now. The 800 number guy was extreemly rude and actually yelled at me.

[MICKD]

My bed has a very thin coat of paint on it, I scratched it by just resting a garden hose on it while washing out the bed. The hose had no sand or dirt on it becaused I hosed the hose and bed off before setting it on the bedrail..

Boatswain,

I personally disagree with the rep about ordering a new bed for your truck. Is it an isolated problem? Who knows?? I haven't seen or heard of anyone else with the unfortunate problem you have. Good Luck

[roger350]

Wonder if the factory fix for the slanted bed was to lower one corner of the front. Seems everyone who has measured the "Z" dimension up front, with respect to turning up their torsion bars has noted one side comes from the factory lower? Sounds like the type of fix a quality engineer would come up with...

[ore.diesel]

STANDING BEHIND MY TRUCK THE 8'BED LOOKED CANTED ALSO. JUST COULDN'T FIGURE WHY. SO NOW I KNOW. DON'T FEEL BETTER THOUGH. EVERTHING SEEMS TO BE ON THE THEORY OF GET THE MONEY AND RUN. AMERICA IS CHANGING. JESS

[Boatswain]

Well I finally heard from the customer service people at GMC in Detroit. They said that they are standing by the decision of the factory rep. The factory rep for GMC told the customer service person that the truck bed was off by one millimeter, so it was within specs! I told the gal from customer service that he only looked at it and he never measured it with any kind of a ruler, so I asked her if she knew how much a millimeter was. And how you can see something is off by only a millimeter from a distance with your eye? She said she did not know, but this is the stand GMC is taking. SERVICE AFTER THE SALE! They have my money and that is all that matter's to GMC. Check you truck's bed and see if you don't have the driver's side bed slant too.

[Boatswain]

roger350 I have a question for you. In your post you talked about a "Z" pattern. What is this "Z" pattern you are talking about? I am planning on lifting my truck a little and am going to purchase new torsion bar keys when I do it. What should I look for in regards to this "Z" pattern, and or the level of the truck when I do it? THANKS, Boatswain

[roger350]

The "Z" dimension is the factory spec. for ride height in the front. It's a measurement from, if I recall correctly, the bottom pivot point on the lower control arm, to the lowest point of the control arm out at the ball joint. I have the service manuals at home, but the diagram and explanation are very vague as to the actual point you should measure to out at the ball joint. I want to say the stock spec. is like 4" or so, but I never really felt like I got a good measurement, and I just ended up measuring from the ground to several reference points on the control arms, and tried to match the dimensions on both sides. I got it within about .25" left to right, which took about 5.5 turns on the driver's side, and about 2.5 turns on the pass. side. I still have a little forward rake, but it is much closer to level. I set out to only turn it 3 turns each, not wanting to make it ride worse, but 3 turns on the driver's side just barely leveled it out left to right. With that, it rides fine still and I got it aligned afterwords with no problems. The book does say all ride height adjustments should be made prior to alignment. Do a search on Green Keys, or torsion bars, and you'll find a wealth of information, mostly from people more knowledgable than myself. Hope this helps.