1/16/10

Making Ultra Light Duty Trucks More Effective = The Ute Bed

The Ute [yoot-Australian for pick-up bed] bed is a way to take ultra-light pickups and make them more effective and useful as a work vehicle. One of the problems of using these vehicles for commercial work has always been and still is their capacity due to low gross vehicle weight rating (GVWR), and when you install a typical steel service body or steel and wood or steel flatbed, this problem is amplified because of the weight of the body taking up an inordinate amount of the available cargo capacity.

This leaves little payload to do commercial work, and so many who have tried this route have regularly overloaded their vehicles. This can be dangerous, so most of us in commercial truck land have been wary of light duty units--even 1/2-ton trucks--to do the work that the HD 3/4-ton and 1-tons that we sell regularly do. Of course, those have more capacity.

The Ute bed and other manufacturers are solving this problem with lighter weight bodies, so that the body installed in not much heavier than the pickup bed that came off, yet they offer a different and more effective method of handling cargo so that this arrangement can be a very effective light duty commercial vehicle. In addition, the Ute is available with a wide range of options to make their truck beds more effective for individual business needs.

With these very lightweight, yet extremely strong bodies available, along with some common sense, these ultra-light vehicles can make sense being used effectively in the commercial market. Welcome to the Ute Bed!

Above the photos show a Ute Bed with some optional tool boxes. This gives you the storage capacity of a typical service body on a truck this size with a small portion of the weight. There are many combinations of customizing the Ute Bed for most businesses.

The Ute bed is available as a General Motors Ship-Through via Dealers Truck Equipment in Shreveport, Louisiana (option code TDE) to make it very convenient for Colorado/Canyon dealers anywhere in the country to get a Ute Bed upfitted Colorado or Canyon with near standard shipping. What a benefit this is.

See more information on the Ute Bed at www.utebed.com or www.uteltd.com. You can reach their headquarters in Seattle, Washington at 866-883-2337. They also enjoy a network of dealers nationwide.

2 comments:

crane trucks said...

Very good that ultimately there are some problem solving trucks.There are many utility trucks such as these which are really very helpful...good that there is such good information in the internet.

Castle said...

Great post here. It looks like the Ute bed truck is a great alternative for commercial business owners. This is especially true if you are using a heavier, larger vehicle that requires other equipment, such as dump truck liners, which can be expensive.