Minivan bumpers may not protect much, but they sure do cost a lot to repair, according to the Insurance Institute For Highway Safety. The IIHS smashed six minivans to test their bumpers and found that all racked up repair bills exceeding $5,000. The Nissan Quest was singled out as a “miserable failure,” costing $8,000 to patch-up.
Minivan designs help in bumper tests: The minivans performed somewhat better in the 4 bumper tests than the midsize cars the Institute tested earlier this year. This is in part because the minivans’ front bumpers are an inch or so higher off the ground, compared with car bumpers (about 17 inches versus 16). The extra height means the minivans’ front bumpers usually didn’t underride the test barrier, which exacerbates the damage.
Another important design aspect is that most of the minivans the Institute tested have third-row seats that fold into the floor, which requires pushing the vehicles’ frame rails out wider. Because the bumper systems attach to the ends of the rails, the rear bumpers (but not the front ones) also are wider. This means they do a better job of protecting the rear corners of the minivans from damage in low-speed collisions. For example, the taillights on the minivans weren’t damaged in any of the rear corner tests while the headlights were damaged in 4 of the 6 corresponding front corner tests.
The Insurance Institute claims, “it’s damage that consumers shouldn’t have to pay for or put up with the aggravation of having to get their vehicles repaired,” but their crocodile tears are really geared towards boosting their own profit margins by reducing the cost of insurance claims. At least they posted slow-motion footage from the test crashes on YouTube.
Minivan bumper test results: Nissan Quest is by far the worst performer [Insurance Institute for Highway Safety]
Insurance Institute For Highway Safety Reveals Results Of Minivan Bumper Tests [YouTube]
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the chevy cavalier is a cheap car that is cheaply made what do you expect from plastic bumpers?@hoystory:
The new Beetle had ZERO damage reported in its 5 mph bumper basher test with both Car and Driver and the IIHS. Have we forgotten the basic designs for a resilient and robust bumper, in trade off for cost-effective construction, does not compute?
So when your bumper gets bashed up, do what they do up here..replace it with a 2X6. Total cost = $10.00 (including bolts and duct tape). Check out the fine job on this Ford Econoline pickup.
Seriously, when was the last time an automaker cared how much it cost to fix one of their cars (or for that matter, how easy it was to do mechanical repairs)? The only concern on the automaker’s side is whether it’s cheap to produce and whether or not it looks good.
A small dent in a body panel could cost you several thousand bucks to fix. Body work is ridiculously expensive.
Its because all those jelly-bean looking aerodynamic vehicles have bumpers that are practically make for looks only. If i remember correctly they took one apart & it had the equivalent of styrofoam in it. Gimme the old fashioned chrome bumpers made of STEEL! Not plastic & foam!
Glad my jeep has one.
Thats not hard to believe when you consider how much these places charge for labour.
What’s really ridiculous is how much they charge to get a hood. The part will cost a few hundred and they’ll bill you the four hours it takes Sal to tighten a bolt.
Pickups and SUVs are not subject to the 2.5 mph bumper standards. Their bumpers are typically design elements with no function whatsoever. (And you thought THESE bumpers were lousy.)
In addition, the short overhangs and oversized wheels on your SUV predispose them to serious damage in even the lowest-speed collisions.
A Jeep Grand Cherokee is tied only with a Wrangler for the honor of being the vehicle I should least like to own in a low-speed collision.
@maztec: I miss Germany. A human not where a human should be was fair game.
@dwayne_dibbly:Why even do bodywork? My Baja has scrapes, dents, and scratches. Let em’ be. The bumpers are beyond five miles an hour. My old boss kept backing into the front. It just took it.
There should be a bring back of replaceable body panels.
@dwayne_dibbly: Plus, as in this photo I took in central New York state, you can write stuff on ‘em.
I’m completely, entirely against flimsy body-color bumpers. Give me a 1980s Volvo any day in a 5-mph crash.
It’s not as black and white as a strong bumper vs a car that crumbles correctly on a 30mph impact. We should have enough smart enough engineers to do both.
There is really is no excuse that a bumper cannot withstand a 5mph impact. The manufacturers are looking to save costs, and make the cars look cooler, the bumpers are almost an afterthought.
This is total bullsh*t. It should not cost that much to fix a 6mph collision. Nor should a car be damaged that much at 6 mph. Hell it shouldn’t even be damaged that much at 30mph or 40mph. I thank the higher power above that I was driving my 1958 chevy panel truck the night I got hit by a drunk driver who was going about 70mph on a windy 2 lane road. When the police came, they were absolutely beside themselves when they saw that the only damage to my 58 tank was that my bumper was cocked upwards and to the side and bent. Guess what happened to his mid-80′s subaru? totaled. absolutely totaled. I mean unrecognizable. no joke. Cop says to me “wow i guess they really DON’T make them like they used to” . Yeah I was sore as hell, my knees slammed into the steering wheel my back hurt but after about 5 days i was starting to get over it. It absorbed the impact and hell it even gave some impact back to that idiot drunk! You just can’t beat well built steel, you never will. The sooner people learn that the better. If I was in my little toyota truck you can bet your ass I would’ve been hurtin alot more, body and wallet.
I used to drive a Nissan Pathfinder and one night when it was icy, a girl in a Honda civic or accord smacked into me. She hit a patch of ice and couldn’t stop in time, and when we got out to inspect the damage, her hood was folded like an accordion and my bumper looked a little crooked but was fine. I felt a jolt when her car hit mine, but it wasn’t painful. Later when I got an estimate on my bumper, I found out that while it looked fine from the outside (just crooked), inside the bumper it was smashed the pieces. I felt a bump, but the bumper (thank goodness) absorbed the impact. It wasn’t at 2 or 3 mph either, it was probably 10 to 15. And the bumper cost about $900 to fix.
And also on well built older cars with accessible steel bumpers (and even some more current cars like my acura integra) if you are handy enough you can find a replacement bumper (as well as the support braces if those are bent too) either at a junkyard or online for a couple hundred and replace it yourself. Sure beats the over 5k figures for pieces of crap lol.
I got hit by a guy last winter in my Explorer. I was driving on a 4 lane street with middle turn lane. I’m doing about 25 in a 45 because the street is a solid sheet of ice. I have my Explorer in 4×4. I see a pickup lose control and come across, I give the Explorer gas and pass that pickup within inches. UNFORTUNATELY there was a gentlman in a Montero or some other Asian wannabe SUV that hit the pickup. The Montero then whacked my Explorer on the drivers rear quarter.
Damage sustained to ’92 Explorer – $1200 A couple dents, some scratches in the paint, a new tallight and a broken mirror. Ended up getting a new mirror for $75 and a new taillight housing for $40, I kept the rest of the check.
The Montero I know got totaled because all four of his doors were smashed and wouldn’t open and close properly, plus his back quarter sheetmetal on the passengers side was bashed in pretty good. He also lost a tire and wheel.
The Nissan pickup that started all this I bet probably wound up with close to $4000 in damage to his front end.
This new stuff just doesn’t hold up at all.