Front skid plates: pick the material before you pick the brand

BodySafety-criticalCost$$–$$$Difficulty 2/5FitsGen 3

Safety notice — Suspension.

This affects a safety-critical system. Reference material only: for safety-critical work, consult a qualified mechanic.

Esto afecta un sistema crítico para la seguridad. Material de referencia únicamente: en trabajos críticos para la seguridad, consulte a un mecánico calificado.

Community consensus. This entry is not backed by factory documentation — treat its values and steps as a starting point, not as if they came from the factory manual.

Consenso de la comunidad. Esta entrada no se apoya en documentación de fábrica — tome los valores y los pasos como punto de partida, no como si vinieran del manual de fábrica.

The front set for a Gen 3 covers three separate things — the front undercarriage, the oil pan and the transmission — and it is sold either in steel or in marine-grade aluminium. The supplier publishes the thickness of each material, the weight of each individual plate in both, and the percentage by which the aluminium set is lighter; all of those figures are in the first citation. It also states, in its own words, that steel bends when it is hit and can be hammered back, while aluminium gouges more and is harder to reshape. Neither of those is a defect: they are two different answers to the same impact, and which one you want depends on whether you can get to a workshop or have to keep driving.

What it needs first

Nothing else has to be done first.

What it breaks or affects

Everything below is a consequence of fitting this, not a reason against it. Read it before you buy, not after.

System	Consequence	What happens
Suspension	Has to be reset	Every plate is constant weight the front springs now carry. You do not have to reason about that from the plate weights alone: the spring supplier's own band table names skid plates as one of the accessories that moves a truck out of its base front spring and into the heavy-duty band. Add the plate weights from the first citation to whatever else is going on the truck, find the band, and make the spring decision in the linked entry rather than after the fact.Modificationgen3-suspension-lift-springs
Body	Gets worse	The supplier's own comparison says steel bends when impacted and can be hammered back into shape, while the aluminium set is lighter by the percentage the supplier states and better against corrosion, but gouges more and is harder to reshape. A plate that has taken a real hit is not the plate you bought either way — plan on inspecting the mounts after any impact hard enough to have been worth the armour.

The honest tradeoffs

Armour is the modification that most obviously does something and least obviously costs something, so be specific about the cost. It is permanent weight, most of it forward on the truck, and the spring supplier cited below does not leave you to guess what that means: it bands its front springs by added constant weight and lists skid plates — alongside a steel bumper and dual batteries — among the accessories that put you in the heavy-duty band rather than the base one. That is the supplier telling you, in its own catalogue, that a set of plates is a spring decision. Armour also puts a solid surface between you and everything you service from underneath, so budget the extra minutes on every oil change and keep the mounting hardware in mind at every service, because a plate you have to take off for an oil change is a plate whose fasteners live in the weather. And a plate protects the thing behind it, not the thing next to it: a set like this covers the undercarriage, the pan and the transmission and does nothing at all for the differentials, the fuel tank or the rocker panels. The one genuinely good news is reversibility — the supplier states that fitment needs no drilling, cutting or permanent modification, so the decision can be undone. Take the weight into account when you choose springs, and if you are running a lift, read this together with the linked suspension entry.

Safety notice — Suspension.

What it needs first

What it breaks or affects

The honest tradeoffs

Sources