AUTO INSURANCE ARTICLE

Auto Insurance Tips: Bumper- to-Bumper Accidents Cost Big Time!

By: letter_woman

Cars, just like clothes, evolve as each year pass. With its innovative style, high-tech features and sophisticated look, it’s very hard to imagine how expensive it is to repair and rebuild a damaged car. That is why auto insurance policies are not a waste of money, but a good protection since even low-collision accidents can yield such damaging results to your wallet. And with the ongoing economic crisis, who would want to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars for car repairs?

These days, most car manufacturers opt to release small and stylish looking cars – with even smaller front and rear bumpers that makes you wonder if they can really help you survive a low-collision crash. This question served as an inspiration to the Institute for Highway Safety or IIHS to conduct various vehicle tests last September 2008 investigating the durability of the bumpers of 20 small vehicle models. In order to study and assess them, IIHS conducted a series of 4 crash tests for each of the 20 vehicles. These tests include full front and rear bumper smashing into a barrier that is designed to simulate the front and back bumper of another car. The full-width impacts are conducted at six miles per hour while the corner impacts at 3 miles per hour.

Bumpers are built in order to absorb the collision energy to avoid damage to expensive car parts such as fenders and hoods. However, most modern cars sacrificed the bumper’s efficiency for aesthetics. In fact, according to IIHS, their test results show that many modern front-end bumper designs often slide under the bumpers of the vehicles they collide with or don’t have enough room to absorb the energy of a low-speed crash because most of them weren’t even big enough to protect the car from damage.

Out of the 20 small cars tested, Hyundai Elantra, Toyota Prius and Volkswagen Rabbit were included in the bottom list, with a damage that costs anywhere from $1000 to almost $5,000. The Hyundai Elentra is the worst, suffering roughly $4,954 in damages in full-front bumper crash test – almost amounting to one-thirds of the car’s total value. The Ford Focus, on the other hand, performed the best with only $588 in damage.

Bumper performance in low-speed crash test: VEHICLE REPAIR COSTS

Full front

Front corner

Rear full

Rear corner

TOTAL DAMAGE

Ford Focus

$588

$1,329

$529

$585

$3,031

Scion xB

$789

$1,028

$868

$1,012

$3,697.00

Scion xD

$1,135

$594

$1,499

$907

$4,135

Mazda 3

$1,117

$1,389

$1,120

$1,233

$4,859

Nissan Sentra

$1,451

$1,684

$1,043

$730

$4,908

Dodge Caliber

$1,408

$1,285

$1,966

$663

$5,322

Subaru Impreza

$2,023

$1,705

$893

$1,072

$5,693

Suzuki Sx4

$3,450

$965

$779

$663

$5,693

Saturn Astra

$2,774

$962

$1,550

$612

$5,898

Nissan Versa

$2,795

$1,213

$1,429

$715

$6,378

Mitsubishi Lancer

$1,939

$1,560

$1,642

$1,228

$6,152

Toyota Corolla

$3,444

$1,203

$863

$1,295

$6,805

Chevrolet Cobalt

$3,654

$1,169

$929

$1,101

$6,879

Honda Civic

$4,328

$917

$883

$751

$6,879

Chevrolet HHR

$2,259

$1,491

$2,227

$1,440

$7,417

Kia Spectra

$3,430

$979

$2,505

$675

$7,589

Chrysler PT Cruiser

$3,642

$1,627

$2,138

$854

$8,261