Unibody vs. Body on frame construction?

Roadtrek 1 · February 21, 2019

Do you have an opinion on which chassis is actually stronger, safer, better road dynamics and ride?

After 40,000 miles, we replaced the struts and anti-sway bar on our vehicle......it made a really big difference in the handling especially over uneven road surfaces, entrance to driveways, speed bumps etc.

Any experience with either?

In your opinion, does the chassis really matter long term?

Kirk W · February 21, 2019

I'm not completely sure what you want to know but will try to answer. A unibody vehicle has no frame rails and so that makes the vehicle weigh much less than a similar vehicle on a frame. if you mean automobiles, then the unibody design is one of the reasons that modern cars must have a base-plate assembly in order to safely tow one by way of a tow-bar since there is no frame to attach the tow-bar to. The lack of a frame rail is also one reason that unibody cars are so very limited in the amount of weight that they can safely tow and it is a factor in the effects of an automobile collision damage effects.

If you are looking at motorhomes, you don't find unibody until you get up into the highest priced coaches because of the cost of such construction for heavy vehicles and that design is from the commercial bus industry and is very expensive to build in vehicles with a very high GVWR but it is also the reason that commercial buses and million dollar motorhomes have such large volumes of storage below the walking floor.