another reason I drive a 1 ton as a daily driver

[3930dave]

The LTD comments got me thinking......

Imagine what the Blues Brothers could have done with an H1 !!!!!!

:thumbsup:

D.

 

[Willl]

Got T-boned in my 3/4T Dodge Cummins about 2 months ago.

Sure glad I wasn't driving the wifes old Chevy Cavalier.

 

[Soundguy]

yep.

this guy's air bag didn't deploy.. which kinda surprised me.. but then again.. maybee no surprise.

in 09 I decided to buy the wife a new economy car fro running in town and to work. got a kia rio... great milage, etc. was a couple months old.. she was at a stoplight behind an suv.. car came over the hill, slammed on brakes and slid into her.. was a full sized sedan. -0- damage to sedan, 200$ rubber bumper cover damaged on the SUV above the hitch area. the rio crumpled front and rear and bowed the entire sheet metal front to rear of the car, popped and crushed the trunk.. had to access contents thru back seat, neither door would open without bending body pannels to force them open car was a total loss.

no air bags deployed on any of hte 3 vehicles. all walked away with bumps and bruises.. it's a shame about the kia... so much cosmetic damage that it was totaled. actual frame didn't get involved.. just lots of tabs and small metal fornt and rear deformed past economical repair..

Old cars like that were built like bridge beams, no give, steering columns did not collapse - that alone killed a lot of people. Modern car designs try and keep the passenger cell intact, while allowing both ends to crumple. My beef with the current designs is that even a low speed impact causes huge repair bills - the energy absorbing designs of the late 70's had bumpers mounted on shock absorbers - Canadian cars could deal with something like a 5mph (or was it 8 ?) impact with zero damage.

A modern Civic has a decent crash rating, what is really scary is the sub-compacts - some of them seem to have the rear hatch glass about 3" behind the rear seat passenger !!!

[

Rgds, D.

 

[Soundguy]

I believe vehicles these days give a much better chance of walking away from a bad wreck, but at the expense the vehicle. ...

ditto that.. low speed fender bender can total a car nowadays ( money wise ).. especially if it is a lower cost vehicle, or a couple years old.

 

[Soundguy]

99? Are you referring to the Hummer I had? That was a 95 but no matter they are all pretty much the same. Very few differences over the years except for the 06 Alpha which was the last year of production for the civy model Hummer.

naw.. he was talking about my 99 f350

 

[pclausen]

Did the winch still work?

Sure did. Other than a blemishes on the chrome finish on the winch mount and a slight bend on one of the mounting brackets, there was no cosmetic damage and no functional issues at all.

I believe the repair bill to the Caddy was around $8k. As stated, modern cards with crumble zones will just fold up like a piece of paper to protect the occupants.

 

[JDgreen227]

A friend and I were recently talking about the huge repair bills. I think there should be a limit to how much you, or your insurance, has to pay if you hit someone and only their bumpers are damaged. Call it $300 per bumper. These fancy painted bumpers, fiberglass / plastic ones that need total replacement, etc. that's fine if people want to buy them, but those people (and their insurance) should bear the cost of that styling. They do somewhat by their own insurance being more, but I would be really pissed if I bumped someone in a parking lot and ended up with a $1000 claim against me, and it happens all the time.

My girlfriend has a late-model Mustang and both her front and rear bumpers are trashed from parking lot hit-and-runs. It is $600 for one, $700 for the other. Since she has a $500 deductible on her insurance she has to pay for most of it. In my honest opinion (not that I will tell her this) she should have to pay most of it even if the other drivers did stop and give their information. They are cheap bumpers that are designed to fail and be replaced, not get dented and keep on going.


Did the winch still work?

Wife backed our Buick into something one time, it punched a hole into the rear fascia of the bumper and it cost close to $1200to have it replaced. Had the car had the older type chrome steel bumpers it might have dented the bumper but so what? No hole. Crash parts (those that get damaged in a fender bender) are obscenely marked up. $900 for a plastic bumper fascia....plus labor and paint? Frickin' inane.

 

[Soundguy]

imho.. htey do that on purpose as they know they will get their money.. and near no way to run the car without them...

 

[Renze]

Old cars like that were built like bridge beams, no give, steering columns did not collapse - that alone killed a lot of people. Modern car designs try and keep the passenger cell intact, while allowing both ends to crumple. My beef with the current designs is that even a low speed impact causes huge repair bills - the energy absorbing designs of the late 70's had bumpers mounted on shock absorbers - Canadian cars could deal with something like a 5mph (or was it 8 ?) impact with zero damage.

My fathers last Volvo, a 1991 740 turbodiesel, had gas struts behind the bumper. With my mothers driving and parking style, that was a viable alternative for an all-risk insurance. Later they had a Toyota Camry, which was of good quality but if mother hit a fencepost in the parking lot, it shoved the tail light unit so far inwards that you could steal the groceries from the trunk through the side. (trunk lid was undamaged) They then had a Ford Mondeo for 7 years, and now have a Kia (made in Korea) it has a weak plastic bumper with headlight glass less than a half an inch from the front of the car: Thats why they insured it fully (also for single accidents)

Thats why i keep my Volvo (the last one designed in the good ol' times before curved rooflines that took away visibility for tall guys like me) as long as possible. I've bounced off trees undamaged where a similar encounter has cost others thousands in repair...
Even though the aforementioned Camry was of a later design and would probably score equal to my Volvo in a crash test...

However these fender benders we've discussed here, dont say anything about the chance of survival in the vehicle in a serious accident: Just hit a big oak hard (say 50mph) with the F350 and then come back to tell the story
You'd have better chances in a midsize saloon than a truck, though the midsize saloon could be totaled with minor damage to the truck in a low speed accident.

 

[JDgreen227]

3930 Dave states that cars in the late 70's could withstand a 5 mph impact without damage because of the impact absorbing bumpers....not to be critical of his post, BUT: The bumpers were not immune to damage, from what I recall they would protect SAFETY RELATED SYSTEMS such as vehicle lighting without damage, and the claim was not applicable to the bumper systems themselves.


Tell you guys something, I had a '70 Mach 1 Mustang that was hit in the rear twice by a comparably sized vehicle, the repair bills each time were something like $1500 which was about half what the car cost new. I traded that Ford in on a '73 Nova with the new impact absorbing bumpers. When it was about 3 years old I got rear-ended by a mid-50's full size Dodge 4 door sedan which outweighed my Nova, well the only damage to the Nova was the impact strip on the rear bumper !!! Had the same old Dodge hit my Mustang, it would have totaled the Mustang out. As ugly as the older chrome bumpers were back then, I actually would prefer them to the newer plastic fascia bumpers I have on my Buick. At least the steel bumpers could take an impact without needing $1000-plus replacement.