Rear-Ended; New Bumper?

Elle wrote:

if there's no deformation, there's nothing to worry about.

if there is damage, of much more concern is whether you get to keep your
own car - if you have full insurance coverage, chances are, the insurer
will take your car, junk it, and give you a trivial settlement as
"market value".  only insure old cars third party if you like them and
want to keep them.

To clarify and/or double check: There is no deformation of the bumper
that appears on an external inspection. I asked the policeman about
the styrofoam inside, and he said the external plastic would often
bounce back, showing no deformation, but meanwhile the styrofoam
inside could be permanently deformed.

Is this not so from your understanding of bumper construction?

Thanks for giving this some time.

9cd4d707f02e@c36g2000yqn.googlegroups.com:



The cop is correct. A junkyard crawl will confirm this.

The steel bumper rebar is bolted to the car. The foam is affixed to the
bumper skin which covers the rebar.

The foam is meant primarily to hold the bumper skin out to its finished
dimensions and shape. It also absorbs very minor "parking lot" type nudges.
Under heavier impacts, the foam tends to compress and break up into large
chunks. Those chunks often stay in place on account of the shape of the
skin, but they can become dislodged and even fall out.

Theoretically, the rebar comes into play above 2.5mph (5mph in Canada), and
theoretically protects the lights and other safety systems from damage
during those impacts. Although I've seen too many instances where the
bumper appears to have provided little more protection than a 1960s bumper,
while costing a lot more.


--
Tegger

The Unofficial Honda/Acura FAQ
www.tegger.com/hondafaq/

Tegger wrote:

as tegger says, the styrofoam is of no consequence in any real accident,
it's simply to hold cosmetic shape.  the steel or gfrp bar underneath,
and its mounting brackets, are what matter.  if they're bent, the bumper
always shows misalignment.  afaik, honda build to 5mph rather than dick
about with this keep-detroit-employed 2.5mph rubbish - doesn't take much
of a nudge to open a full change tray.  chances are, you're just fine.

I think you're right and I'm at least out-of-date in my information.

According to www.riv.ca, the government-licensed agency that administers
the importation of foreign vehicles into Canada, 1994-and-up Hondas are
admissible without bumper modifications. Since Elle's '93 is the same as
the '94, this means her bumpers are obviously 5mph ones.

Since cars that are 15 model-years old or older are importable into Canada
without any restrictions or modifications, they are no longer listed with
RIV, so I can't check to see if earlier models had 2.5mph bumpers.

However, it's still passing strange that Canada and the United States
remain, since 1973, the only countries in the entire world to have bumper
standards at all.


--
Tegger

The Unofficial Honda/Acura FAQ
www.tegger.com/hondafaq/

Yours is good info, fellows.

I googled a bit on the purpose of the styrofoam "absorber" (as it is
called on parts sites). I thought this was interesting (from
http://www.car-stuff.com/toyotabumperabsorber.htm ):
"... it is the Toyota bumper absorber that is usually made of
Styrofoam or plastic that is positioned in between the bumper cover
and the reinforcement to help strengthen the capacity of the bumper to
absorb the impact created during collisions. In most cases, bumpers
alone could not sustain the impact created during collisions, which is
why a bumper assembly should be completed for maximum protection. If
until now your bumper assembly is still lacking a Toyota bumper
absorber, better equip your auto with one now or you probably would
regret later on that you haven't. Bumpers are able to bounce the force
back to the object that has collided with your auto instead of that
force directly hitting your vehicle."

A lot of helmet designs use styrofoam, for one, so the above seems
reasonable.

Seems there is a fair amount of chatter and dispute about whether the
metal bumpers of say the 60s were better insofar as cutting down on
damage to the vehicle. Maybe so but ISTM manufacturers also sought to
lighten cars to achieve better gas mileage. Tradeoffs and all.

4bf9217e4d1c@y17g2000yqn.googlegroups.com:



Around the mid-'60s, automakers started turning their bumpers into what
might be more accurately termed "decorative chrome bars". Insurance claims
for minor body damage began escalating about that time. Tired of the
claims, and alarmed by the sleek, form-fitting "bumpers" installed on cars
by the late '60s, insurance companies lobbied the federal government for
impact standards in order to limit minor damage claims.

From what I understand, the nascent safety zealots jumped in at the same
time, claiming that safety was being undermined by lots of people driving
around with broken headlights on account of the poor bumpers.

The result of their combined efforts was the 5-mph bumper impact
regulations, first imposed on the front bumpers of 1973 MY cars (except for
hardtops and convertibles, for some odd reason, which got one more year to
comply).

The first energy-absorbing bumpers were essentially simple "logs" mounted
on cylindrical struts that were filled with fluid of some kind, and were
designed to collapse under impact. These assemblies were bulky and heavy
(and usually ugly).

As the CAFE regulations of 1975 got tighter and tighter over the years,
automakers sought to make the original steel/aluminum battering-ram bumpers
lighter and lighter. This is why we now have hybrid flexible/rigid bumpers:
Light foam simply replaced the old heavy cylindrical struts.
Your rebar -- the original "bumper" prior to 1973 -- is now rigidly mounted
to the body shell, just like a 1972 model, but is now buried under a $400
plastic skin ($800 including paint).

It's my understanding that insurance companies never really did get their
hoped-for claims reductions: Better bumpers meant even /less/ careful
drivers. Minor impact damage went down, but just about every other kind of
collision damage went way up. A mixed blessing, to say the least.


--
Tegger

The Unofficial Honda/Acura FAQ
www.tegger.com/hondafaq/

8d748fb83c8f@26g2000yqk.googlegroups.com:


Hope you were OK. Did you see it coming?




The foam is usually cracked and compressed. If you push on the bumper skin
with your hand, you'll probably find that there is air space that wasn't
there before. You may have a slightly increased chance of parking-lot
damage to the skin (creasing, paint cracking) than you did before, but
otherwise it should be OK.

You can try reaching inside from underneath with your hand (don't know if
you'll actually be able to touch the foam) and see if the foam is loose.




Is there obvious displacement of the bumper skin relative to the trunk,
taillights and fenders? Does the trunk still shut exactly as it did before?

The trunk latch is right next to the bumper, so it's a pretty good proxy
for evidence of structural deformation.



--
Tegger

The Unofficial Honda/Acura FAQ
www.tegger.com/hondafaq/

On Jul 7, 8:08=A0am, Tegger  wrote:

Yes thanks no injuries; just shook up. Mostly while waiting for the
police report I was just really unhappy that my beloved Honda may have
been blemished+ or more. I was and am really irritated with the person
who caused this and have half a mind to maximize her insurance
company's hit to compel her to think twice while she drives (with two
small kids in the car). But gosh I loathe insurance companies, so...

I was at a stoplight that had turned green yet the cars in front of me
were not moving. So I did not see it coming.

I will do all the checks you described soon. Thank you for the detail!

Elle wrote:


Glad you are all right.

When I got rear-ended, I was stopped a bit short behind another car
waiting to make  a left turn.  I watched in the rear view mirror as a
driver of a little econo-box stomped her brakes, making the rear end pop
up and swerve back and forth as it approaced my bumper.  I had a split
second to turn my car left, but not into oncoming traffic, to avert the
oncoming blow.  Luckily she turned out of my lane and a full-on smash to
just graze the rear right corner of my bumper cover.  Deep scratches in
the plastic, but fixable.  I should have made the insurance pay for a
whole new bumper, but instead, I just had her pay for paint.  I just
repaired and repainted the whole bottom of the cover that needed
refreshing anyway.  I didn't give much thought to the styrofoam underneath.

It is fairly easy to remove the rear bumper to see what's going on under
there.

dan

snip but all read and found helpful

I checked everything people listed here. The factory shop manual has a
single page for directions on how to get the bumper cover and
styrofoam absorber apart, and it is dead-on correct in what (easily
accessed) screws and bolts to remove. Everything looks good! I am
amazed that the styrofoam absorber is not cracked nor does it appear
deformed. At most, the bottom 3/8-inch of the styrofoam has small
indentations from where gravel from the road accumulated over the
years between the styrofoam and bumper cover. Then the gravel got
pushed into the styrofoam some, either from this rear-ending or lesser
ones over the years. The bumper beam looks fine.

I guess the styrofoam, the bumper beam, and the car moving some upon
collision took the force (in the vein of Tegger's post). Kudos to
Honda engineers or whoever sets standards for bumpers. A little more
touchup paint here and there; some Armor All, and I think my Civic
will be good to go.

Thanks again Jim, Tegger and Dan.

Postscript: On reflecting on this accident and preventing it in the
future, and from reading Dan's post, I think one of the lessons here
is when there is a green light yet people ahead of one's car are not
moving, glance at the rear-view mirror throughout and see what people
in the back are doing. Maybe scoot the car up a little until people
start moving.

Elle wrote:

    Yes moving forward when the vehicles in front of your vehicle haven't
moved would increase the odds of having your vehicle pushed into the
vehicle ahead of yours. Increasing the amount of damage to your vehicle
and involving other vehicles and people in the collision.

good rule of thumb when stopped, always leave enough space in front of
your car that you can see at least the rear bumper of the car in front
of you, so that a rear impact won't totally squish your car. you might
even be able to duck sideways out of the way. practice in your
driveway at such things helps. stuff you need to know when you drive a
civic in a world of suvs.

z wrote:

    An even thing to do is to stay back so that you are able to see the
bottom of the tires of the vehicle in front of yours. This allows you
enough room to cut your wheels and to drive around that vehicle should
the need arise, whether due to another vehicle approaching yours from
the rear faster than it can stop or if the vehicle in front stalls and
doesn't move when the light changes. This works for any size of vehicle
by the way from a Smart Car or a tractor trailer truck.

On 7/9/09 5:44 AM, in article h34hmf$tr6$20@news.datemas.de, "Brian Smith"


That all sounds great, totally reasonable & in fact, driver's ed in 1965
taught the bumper rule. If you try it around here (Dallas), one of several
things will happen every time:  another car will try to pull into the gap
between you and the car in front if that gap appears big enough; the cars
behind you will start honking because you are blocking access to the turn
lane by being stopped so far back; the driver behind you will stop, get out
of the car and come up and start yelling (like they do in D.C.).  I have
found the half-car-length rule to be more practical & just as safe.

some folks just can't judge distance.
The "bottom of the tires" guideline works good enough,and is not too far
back,and doesn't leave a gap sufficient for anyone to sneak into.

(and if they appear to be trying,THEN you edge up a tad,block them.you
should be paying attention anyways.)

--
Jim Yanik
jyanik
at
kua.net

E. Meyer wrote:

    The space between vehicles is not great enough for any idiot to think
about squeezing into, there just isn't room.

    As far as blowing horns and people walking up to "chat" that's fine and
easy to ignore.

On 7/9/09 8:22 AM, in article h34qtn$os8$7@news.datemas.de, "Brian Smith"


Depends what you are driving - If its anything with a long hood (& I'll
concede that leaves out most Hondas) and/or the thing in front has a long
trunk (like an LTD), bottom of the tires is about one car length & I have
seen it happen enough times to know its true.



Usually its the guy who just missed the once-every-5-minutes turn light
because some jerk wouldn't pull up 5 feet to let him into it.  Easy to
ignore, but still...