Many
Americans believe sport utility vehicles,
or SUVs, and pickup trucks cause extensive
damage to passenger cars when they collide
just because they're bigger and heavier.
While pure size may come into play, the
real culprit in low-speed collisions may
be the mismatch between the height of the
bumpers on each.
SUVs, pickup trucks and minivans sold in
the United States are not required by the
federal government to have bumpers at all.
And while many manufacturers do put
bumpers on them, they typically do not
match up with passenger cars which are
required to have bumper systems placed in
a range of 16 to 20 inches from the
ground.
What's more, SUV and truck bumpers are
usually pretty flimsy. "Most truck and SUV
bumpers are purely decorative,'' says Russ
Rader, a spokesman for the Insurance
Institute for Highway Safety -- an
insurance-industry-funded center that
routinely does crash tests on a wide
selection of vehicles.
Too high, too low
Years ago, this was not such an issue, but
as the popularity of SUVs and pickups has
soared, so has the problem of the
mismatch.
What that could mean for consumers is an
unexpectedly costly repair bill resulting
from even the most minor of accidents.
Five years ago Rader's group subjected
seven pickups and SUVs to 5 mph collisions
and found that, even when equipped with
bumpers, almost all sustained expensive
damage. Damage back then ranged from more
than $1,000 for a Chevrolet Silverado to
more than $2,000 for a RAV4.
Manufacturers have criticized such tests
as not being representative of real-world
situations and say they ignore the overall
safety features of vehicles. Rader
acknowledges that the issue isn't
safety-related -- bumpers usually have
little to do with protecting occupants in
a crash. "Bumpers really have little
impact on safety. It's a cost thing,'' he
says.
To illustrate the problem of bumper
mismatch, the Insurance Institute for
Highway Safety, or IIHS, tested several
passenger cars and SUVs with rear-end
collisions at 10 miles an hour. The tests
involved the following cars in rear-end
collisions:
·
Ford Taurus versus Ford Explorer (SUV)
· Volvo S40 versus Volvo XC90 (SUV)
· Dodge Stratus versus Jeep Grand
Cherokee (SUV)
· Nissan Altima versus Nissan
Murano (SUV)
· Toyota RAV4 (SUV) versus another
Toyota RAV4 (SUV)
View the damage reports and the repair
costs in the slideshow below.
Buyers should beware because while the
cost of repairs from even minor collisions
has jumped in recent years, many people,
simultaneously, are opting for higher
deductibles on their auto insurance
policies in order to keep premiums down.
Deductible will get you
So if a driver carries $1,000 or even $500
deductibles on his policy he could wind up
paying almost all of a repair bill from a
low-speed crash.Without a bumper there is
nothing there to protect the expensive
sheet metal or other equipment,'' Rader
says.While the federal government at one
time required car bumpers to withstand
5-mph impacts without damage to such
things as headlights and taillights, that
standard was cut to 2.5 mph during the
Reagan administration as carmakers pleaded
that they needed to go to lighter bumpers
to meet fuel economy standards.
A more recent test, conducted by the
Insurance Institute in 2004, focused on
crash damage resulting from collisions of
SUVs with passenger cars with distinct
differences in bumper heights.
In the
10-mph test crashes repair costs ran as
high as $6,100 for both vehicles.
Collisions between cars at that speed
cause less damage because the bumper
systems match up in the 16 to 20-inch
range and absorb more of the impact. But
when an SUV or truck collides with a
passenger car, the bumpers rarely align.
"You end up
having a crash where the bumpers aren't
even involved,'' Rader says. Some 10-mph
crashes resulted in damage that disabled
one or both vehicles.
"You don't
expect such a low-speed crash to make a
vehicle un-drivable,'' Rader says.
Worst case: no bumper
Sometimes there will be no bumper damage
at all for the SUV -- because there's no
bumper. The next time you're sitting
behind a Toyota RAV4 at a traffic light,
look for the rear bumper. Lean forward and
squint all you want -- even clean your
glasses if you think it might help. But
you won't see one -- at least not one that
would protect the vehicle in a crash.
That's because the RAV4, like all sport
utility vehicles, pickup trucks and
minivans sold in the United States, isn't
required by the federal government to have
bumpers. While many manufacturers do put
bumpers on their trucks and SUVs, there's
no guarantee that the bumpers can
withstand even the smallest of parking-lot
taps without sustaining damage.
 |
|
10
mph front-into-rear crash tests |
|
|
|
Ford
Taurus into Explorer |
$1,784 |
$824 |
$2,608 |
|
Chevrolet Malibu into TrailBlazer |
$3,163 |
$937 |
$4,100 |
|
Dodge
Stratus into Jeep Grand Cherokee |
$3,256 |
$1,279 |
$4,535 |
|
Nissan
Altima into Murano |
$4,507 |
$1,188 |
$5,695 |
|
Volvo
S40 into XC90 |
$4,984 |
$1,096 |
$6,080 |
|
Ford
Explorer into Taurus |
$701 |
$555 |
$1,256 |
|
Volvo
XC90 into S40 |
$1,695 |
$2,361 |
$4,056 |
|
Chevrolet TrailBlazer into Malibu |
$1,851 |
$2,316 |
$4,167 |
|
Nissan
Murano into Altima |
$2,517 |
$2,485 |
$5,002 |
|
Jeep
Grand Cherokee into Dodge Stratus |
$2,848 |
$3,281 |
$6,129 |
