Quote:
Originally Posted by Already Gone
I bought this truck yesterday and found something a little strange. I am a little confused and maybe someone has run into this issue before. This truck was purchased new by Grandpa and when he passed away 15 years ago he willed it to his Grandson who I bought it from. So the truck is very original. What my problem is that on the Spid it shows the E81 Wood Box Floor Code but the truck has a steel floor. Now i'm thinking and knowing how fast the factory pushed these trucks down the assembly line maybe it was ordered with the wood floor but when it was on the assembly line they ran out of wood floors so just put the steel floor in the truck to keep the assembly line going. Any input or ideas would be helpful to all of us on here.
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Not likely.
A) That's a consumer's rights issue and is federally regulated if there is a difference in price between the two options. In other words, if a customer pays for something they have to get it. For example, if the customer were to order a trailer hitch (and pay for it) and not receive one then we GM would be vunerable to legal action, including replacement and additional fines and penalties.
B) Part substitutions are not made spontaneously largely because of the downstream assembly implications (especially if there are multiple areas or electrical involved). Making even a minor change can disrupt the subsequent operations due to different attachments, clips, routings, connections, etc.
C) The whole "assembly line running out of parts so they just did a substitution" concept is a bit overplayed. I've only seen it happen a couple times in almost 40 years and in those few instances it there was enough lead time to make a decision or design a recovery plan. It was never spontaneous and it was never done by the plant alone. There was upper management and engineering involvement to wring out all the legal and regulatory implications.
We do occasionally air freight parts around the country just to keep the lines going. I have had experiences where we drove the parts (usually small items) to the local airport and the plane was sitting on the runway with the engine running, waiting for us to arrive.
Having said all that:
1) Make sure the VIN on the SPID matches the actual truck. They sometimes get out of sequence and stuck on the wrong vehicle
2) Maybe the SPID has always been wrong and the truck was built with a steel floor box. For example, the build sheet on my '65 GTO shows the tach cluster and I know the car was built without it.
3) Maybe the box had been swapped early in the vehicles life, as a repair from an accident or damage.
K