Are minivans body-on-frame?

Compared with a full-size van, minivans are now based on a passenger car platform and have a lower body (to fit inside a typical garage door opening). Some early versions, such as the Ford Aerostar and Chevrolet Astro, utilized a compact pickup truck platform.

Are minivans built on truck frames?

Unlike their predecessors, which were built on heavy-duty truck frames with heavy-duty truck suspension components, the new “minivans” were based on significantly lighter car platforms that featured independent suspensions and resulted in a much smoother and more comfortable ride.

What cars are still made body-on-frame?

Toyota currently manufactures the most body-on-frame SUVs with the 4Runner, Sequoia, Land Cruiser, Lexus GX and LX followed by Nissan with the Patrol, Armada, and Infiniti QX56/80. The Ford Panther platform, which was discontinued in 2011, was the last series of traditional passenger cars to be built in this manner.

Is body-on-frame better?

The primary one is that body-on-frame vehicles are better at off-roading and hauling, because their design makes them highly resistant to twisting forces, the kind you’ll experience when you’re crawling over rocks, for example, or when you’ve loaded heavy items into your vehicle’s cargo area.

Which vans are body-on-frame?

The familiar, rugged body-on-frame design of GMC Savana and Chevrolet Express remains popular with many operators, says GM Fleet & Commercial. GM Fleet & Commercial agrees with Nissan about traditional vans.

Is the Honda Ridgeline a unibody?

Since its release, the Honda Ridgeline has been a unibody pickup truck. Part of the Ridgeline’s configuration that sets it apart from the rest of the compact pickup pack is its unibody construction. This allows the Ridgeline to provide a much smoother city driving performance.

Are there any body-on-frame vehicles?

With the exception of a handful of models – like the Jeep Wrangler and Toyota 4Runner – the only body-on-frame vehicles left are pickup trucks and the few big SUVs that share these truck platforms. Pretty much everything else relies on unibody manufacturing.

What is a body-on-frame pickup truck?

This process starts with an underlying frame, and then the vehicle’s body sits atop that. For body-on-frame pickups, the bed is mounted on the frame separately from the cab. Indeed, if you look closely at the side of a body-on-frame truck, you’ll be able to see exactly where the cab ends and the separate bed begins.

What is the difference between body-on-frame and unibody construction?

Body-on-frame used to be the standard method for building vehicles because of the technology and tools available to automakers. Now, unibody construction of vehicles is more common, due to the fact that automotive design and assembly technology has advanced and changed dramatically.

Are body-on-frame SUVs safer than unibody vehicles?

There’s also some reason to believe body-on-frame vehicles aren’t as safe as their unibody counterparts. A study conducted by the National Center for Biotechnology Information reports that, “Occupants of compact unibody SUVs were … at lower risk of death compared to occupants of body-on-frame SUVs.”