[cricketo]

What's the drag coefficient for that thing ?

 

[Kato659]

Four wheel steering is great, can't imagine why GM didn't think of that 20 years ago, and then implement it for 3 years, and then drop it.

A guy at the lake has a quadrasteer GM and he likes it. Bet alignments take a bit longer though.

 

[remy_martian]

I have one. Love it when towing the car trailer and I kick it on in tight parking lots. It's like nothing is back there when pulling 4 tons.

Good to see it back and hopefully GM won't fubar it this time by charging $5k for the option...that stigma stuck with the truck in those three years. It may stick this time since all the e-trucks except the Lightning brag about it.

Alignments...not unusual to do 4 wheel these days. A lot of cars have adjustable toe links in the back these days, including the Tesla Plaid. Car wash and towtrucks is the pain. Gotta check for clearance in the wheel guides and that the tow guy doesn't drag or tie the truck down by the tie rods...

 

[brian_]

Four wheel steering is great, can't imagine why GM didn't think of that 20 years ago, and then implement it for 3 years, and then drop it.

Quadrasteer added substantial complexity to the beam axle (adding steering knuckles and outer CV joints, in addition to the obvious steering gear), in part explaining the cost. The lack of popularity would have been a combination of the cost, lack of recognition by buyers of the value of four-wheel steering (especially tech-adverse pickup truck buyers), and potential higher maintenance cost of the more complex system. Because the truck wasn't designed for rear steering, the Quadrasteer required wider rear track, which was good for stability but was undesirable to buyers otherwise.

In the current world these EV pickups will all have independent rear suspension (IRS), making the incremental cost of rear steering much lower. They're also designed from the beginning for features such as rear wheel steering. Buyers, even of pickups and especially of EVs, now crave any advanced tech they can brag about. With IRS anyway and tons (literally) of electric hardware in the vehicle now tolerated, I don't think there will be much concern among buyers about maintenance. The time has come for rear wheel steering.

Bet alignments take a bit longer though.

All of the EV pickups that are going into production (Rivian R1T, Ford Lightning, GMC Hummer EV, Chevrolet Silverado) or likely to actually make it (Ram 1500, maybe someday Bollinger?) have independent rear suspension, and so will require four-wheel alignment, with only toe likely to ever be adjusted.

 

[remy_martian]

The big thing about 4WS is having a body design that has the wheelhouse clearances while constrained to being able to carry a 4x8 sheet of plywood - not much magic can be done there...the track has to get wider unless you are scrubbing the tires while at a standstill, which would be a disaster for a truck.

The Quadrasteer is no more horrific in track width than a Ford F-150 Raptor.

The quadrasteer is pretty much a Dana 60 as used in the fromt of beam axle 4WD's. Backwards diff housing but knuckles kingpins etc appear to me to be same.