Bumpers Have a BIG Job!

If you drive either a Civic or CR-V from Honda Salisbury, then you can rest easily at night knowing that your auto brand cares enough about your safety to pay special attention to your bumpers.  The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety took SUV and car pairs from seven different auto brands and put them in 10 mph fender benders with one another.  While we do not have results for the vehicles found at Chevrolet Dealer Medina, if they are anything like their domestic competition over at Ford then the results were costly and unattractive.  There are laws in place that require the bumpers on passenger cars to be between a height of 16 to 20 inches above the ground.  However, the SUVs, trucks, and minivans from Chevrolet Dealer Westlake and every other auto maker out there do not have any bumper height regulations in place. 

The IIHS tested these vehicle pairs so that one vehicle was standing still and the other one was traveling at only 10 mph.  The most expensive repair occurred when the Toyota Corolla sedan rear ended the Toyota RAV4 SUV; a total of $9,867.  The car sustained only $3,852 worth of damage while the SUV sustained $6,015 worth of damage.  This was because the car struck the spare tire on the back of the RAV4 rather than the bumper, and the spare tire is not designed to have that kind of force applied to it.  Bumpers actually do serve a purpose and their construction is meant to absorb impact so that the rest of the vehicle is not damaged. 

The other brands tested against each other were Ford, Honda, Nissan, Kia and Hyundai, Dodge and Jeep, and Volkswagen.  The two that had the best results were when the Honda CR-V rear ended the Honda Civic; a total of $2,995 damage resulted.  The other lowest cost repair was when the Kia Forte rear ended the Hyundai Tucson for a total repair bill of $3,601.  On average, the repair costs were higher when the car struck the SUV, and that is because there would be significant damage to the internal engine components of the car as it slid underneath the SUV. 

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