I bought my 2017 F150 XLT 4x4 new, and really like it. I like the way it is built, and the way it looks and rides. The exception is the front bumper has what is made to look like 2 rubber bumper pads that are not rubber at all. They are black plastic shells made to look like rubber. When I found this out (when one of them cracked from nudging the workbench in my garage) I was very disappointed. Why in the world would Ford do this? Just to save a couple bucks ??? How much more would real rubber bumper pads cost them? Or maybe they are concerned with real rubber oxidizing and looking less than nice?

Now I have the choice of replacing the part with the same fake/flawed part I detest about this poor Ford decision. Easy to do , and the flimsy plastic part (it's one piece for both "pads" and the connecting plastic) costs under $100 from the dealer.

The next choice is an after-market bumper. Certainly that would make sense for most folks, but my personal situation is my truck only has a couple inches front and back to fit in my garage and many aftermarket bumpers would exceed that. (my problem , boo hoo , I know) But I also need to re-do my garage workbench eventually. I am also not in the market to buy a $500 to $1000 front bumper just because of fake bumper pads.

The other possibility would be to somehow fabricate and install real rubber pads, but only if I can shape them to look like the fake ones. Buying a small slab of 3 inch thick rubber is easy enough, but cutting a couple pads down to that shape is the challenge. Then creating a metal or wood back piece to attach them to the truck. the good news there is there are a number of holes to bolt them to behind where the fake pads were.

I am open to suggestion and discussion, and also welcome anyone from Ford to try and justify such a bozo design decision.

 

If you have adaptive cruise control the cruise control module is behind the driver side cover, its located there due to the radar sensor being built into the module.

 

I have cruise control, but doubt I have adaptive cruise control. But that is an interesting possibility as to why they may have plastic shells there instead of the real thing. And that would probably mean that an aftermarket bumper would disable that feature too.

 

It should be pretty obvious if you have adaptive cruise control, yes a metal off road bumper would block the radar system. Also I doubt most people think they are bump stops.
You could always just paint the new ones to match the truck.

 

I agree I probably don't have adaptive cruise control. And the plastic is black, so I am not worried about matching paint. But everyone from the Ford dealer parts dept to the truck after market staff agree this is made to look like rubber bumper pads/stops. It sticks out from the bumper and if it were not, there would be no reason to design it sticking out from the bumper. They could have just designed that part of the bumper to look like the rest.