Bumpers on midsize cars are ineffective

"Serious injuries are uncommon in low-speed crashes, and the institute?s bumper tests did not assess passenger safety."

the tests were done at 6mph. How can you be injured at 6mph, other than spilling your coffee? (that's 8.8 feet per second. You probably land harder if you miss a step on the stairs.)

That said, $1400+ to fix a 6 mph accident is pretty insane.

They showed and old Escort going through the same type of test and the damage was $86.

Wonder what that means?

wrote in news:QhVFh.195$ snipped-for-privacy@newssvr11.news.prodigy.net:

This video is stupid and misleading.

The current US impact standard calls for bumpers to be tested at TWO-AND-A-HALF miles per hour, not SIX. Why would these crooks test bumpers at a speed they were never meant to absorb?

Even the original 1973 standard (lobbied for by the same insurance institute that's complaining now) never went above FIVE mph.

Notice they never said what "standard" the bumpers were made to? They simply quote the automakers defensively saying that their bumpers "meet the standard" without saying what the "standard" was.

The Escort in question had plain-steel 5mph bumpers. $86? I wonder about that. Did they source the hydraulic cylinders from a wreckers and not count labor costs? Did they just live with a bent bumper bar? They don't say. In any modern bumper, most of the repair cost for the actual bumper would have been in replacing and painting the bumper skin covering the rebar.

And did you notice the Escort didn't submarine under the impact bar? Most all the others did. Most of the expensive damage wasn't from the bumper repair, but from damage to the hood, cooling system, rad support, fenders and lighting. All resulting from underriding the beam. There are bumper-height standards the automakers have to meet. I'd like to know why the underriding.

Did you know the United States and Canada are the only countries in the world with bumper impact standards?

A final, hilarious irony: The video starts with an ad for the Honda CR-V, which, since it's a light truck, DOES NOT HAVE TO MEET ANY BUMPER STANDARDS AT ALL! What a joke. F-U, MSNBC.

Inflation. :)

Anyway, the difference is that instead of chrome plating the bumpers and and hanging them so they stick out inches from the body work, the bumpers are painted steel and live behind a decorative painted flexible cover that is styled into the body work of the car. Also instead of cheap sealed beams the headlamps are molded and styled into the bodywork.

On cars of that vintage there are hydraulic cylinders that are supposed to be replaced with every bump but generally are servicable as is if the bumper is hit square. They hit the bumper square which is, now that I look at the video the biggest part of how the the insurance institute for higher surcharges has once again skewed a test for much more dramatic results and has to do with your question below.

The underriding is clearly due to the location the bar being crashed into relative to modern car bumpers. The bar appears to be set at the height of the top of large 74-80something bumpers. The bar is also rather narrow in width from top to bottom. It actually looks a bit smaller than the '81 escort's. There is another thing, lots of space under the test bar, where on anything but a truck, this wouldn't be.

Trouble is, todays cars don't have squared off bumpers, so what happens is that the bumper hits the bar but because of the shape of the bar and the bumper, the bar runs along the surface of the bumper cover and smashes into the head lamps as there is space under the test bar for the bumper of the car to go.

All the cars would have done significantly better if they were bumped into each other instead of a test bar with geometery that favored the older style bumpers. There would not have been any under-riding.

The test if anything, shows the difference when rear ending a box truck or similar large vehicle with an overhanging fixed heavy steel bumper at the high end of passenger car bumper height.

The test was IMO designed to get the results it did. Having an '81 escort on hand to compare pretty much seals that.

Because people do actually have accidents at higher speeds. Therefore, having bumpers tested at higher speeds, and probably designed to deal with higher speeds, is a good idea.

I agree, $86 seems a little bit low. But maybe they declared the Escort totalled and $86 was considered the value of the vehicle.

Actually, there are no longer bumper-height standards, as of a year or two ago, I believe. I think that is shameful. Welcome to the SUV Revolution.

--scott

Yes, but do you have a good cylinder head on it? Everybody has an '81 Escort... hardly anybody has one that actually runs...

--scott

That was exactly my take on it too, Tegger. The submarining brought the impact bar up into expensive country on the newer cars.

snipped-for-privacy@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) wrote in news:es9dqb$cvk$ snipped-for-privacy@panix2.panix.com:

Yes, but for the Insurance Institute to lobby the government to have a 5mph standard imposed, then test them at 1mph higher than that, that's disingenuous to say the least.

Surely the automakers didn't suddenly rush to the drawing board and drop their bumpers immediately, did they? Don't you think the structures were left over from when the standard was in force?

wrote in news:gPXFh.2322$tv6.485 @newssvr19.news.prodigy.net:

And how many times have you seen rear-enders (even at very low speeds) where the offending vehicle's front bumper was untouched, but everything above that was crumpled beyond recognition? Nobody thought of what happens when you brake just prior to collision, did they?

snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com (Brent P) wrote in news:goidnVGGiLEbpHXYnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@comcast.com:

With the brakes not having been applied, correct. But most collisions involve at least one of the participants jumping on the brakes at the last second. Seems to me the bumper would have to be a good two feet high to make sure it never underrode anything.

Apples and oranges indeed.

This video is a political tool.

Had they added brake dive the escort would have had it's grill and headlamps smashed too. The test was supposed to be parking lot type bumps I guess

snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com (Brent P) wrote in news:3sqdnXz9WqU4x3XYnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@comcast.com:

Well, even then I wonder. Do you go 6mph into a parking spot?

If you're going 6mph, you're probably in the alley between rows of cars, so the big danger is T-boning somebody pulling out, or backing into somebody going past. Either way, bumper damage is not going to be significant compared to other body damage in those cases.

I once watched circa-1980 Chev Caprice back into a lamp post. He was going quite slowly (backing out of a parking spot), but still the impact from hitting the post was enough to deform the bumper and body structure such as to make the trunk lid pop open. And this was with 5mph bumpers.

The Insurance Institute's tests and MSNBC's video remind me of the "60 Minutes" scam on the Audi 5000. Or ABC's "exploding truck" lies. Remember them? Everything was made-up, and made-up to seem as bad as possible.

NBC did the asploding GM pickups. CBS also ran this scare story on old mustangs with a drop in gas tank.... their poster boy was this teenager who's '67ish mustang stalled on the interstate and instead of pulling on to the shoulder the idiot STOPPED IN THE TRAFFIC LANE and got rear ended by another idiot. The tank broke and a fire started. The kid got a minor burn. CBS dug through nearly 4 decades of records and found out of the millions of mustangs made on the roads for all those years, 70 had fires. Talk about creating a story from nothing by cherry picking.

Then there is consumer distorts and the samuari and then they did a repeat of it with some other SUV. Creating the results they wanted to get the story.

The list just goes on and on.

That the escort was totalled. ;)

Seriously... ugly steel bumpers vs plastic bumpers.

well, duh. What kind of boring story would it be if the headline was "Crashing cars at 2.5mph results in no damage." "Ford Escort worth more than $86 found! So we trashed it."

And I once bumped a '74 Dart into a concrete wall that hard (don't ask, I was 17 at the time :-p) and the damage was $0. 74 was the first year of true shock-absorbing bumpers on A-bodies. What does THAT mean? It means that modern plastic-covered foam-filled "bumpers" are crap, and a steel bumper mounted on true shock-absorbers is dramatically superior. But it costs more to build and might burn another 1/1000th gallon of fuel per trip to carry the extra weight. The fact that the current crap costs the buyer insane money to repair after receiving damage doesn't bother the manufacturer at all- they can sell it so long as it meets minimum requirements.

.> > Wonder what that means? ::: My comment was a little leading. Certainly heavy steel construction is likely to be more protective than plastic. Plastic is great for cheap and light construction. Some plastic can be used in helicopter rotor blades, and football helmets, and other tough applications. But plastic grilles, radiators, bumpers, etc may not fall in the range of products that manufacturers would like to see 'bulletproof'.

Do manufacturers care if there is a ton of damage to a car, and more cars may be totaled due to relatively minor wrecks? I feel that as long as the person in the wreck survives, and liability lawsuits are not raining down on the manufacturers, they might well profit by 'disposable' cars.

The chrome or rubber trim had to be at least scrached up :)

That's what happens with conflicting regulations. Don't forget the environmental impact of chrome plating.

Actually I've found the bumper systems themselves to be decent performance wise, it's the refinishing costs of the painted cover. Scratched chrome? Just buff it, it will look ok. The same thing that scratches the chrome causes ugly gouges in the paint. Not to mention that the paint doesn't always flex that well and cracks. It's all in the cosmetics.

Somehow though I don't think it comes down to manufacturers being 'cheap', but rather that big chromed bumpers have long since gone out of style. It's really more of a question of style vs. performance.