You have heard about crash testing – and the “stars” awarded for how well (or not) a vehicle does when it is driven into a fixed object or struck from behind or from the side. The purpose of the star-rating system is to give buyers information relating to how well (or not) a given vehicle protects occupants in a crash so that they can make a more informed decision about whether to buy it.
On the same principle, how about tests to establish how easily damaged (or not) a given vehicle is and how much (or not) it is going to cost you to get it fixed? Arguably, this is at least as important as crash test scoring because most people are not going to get into a major crash. But almost all of us are going to get into what was once-upon-a-time called a fender-bender.
Of course, they are not called that anymore. Probably because almost no new vehicles – there are a few exceptions – have bumpers anymore. At least, not external ones that protect the vehicle’s front and rear ends from suffering expensive damage in the event of a light impact. Oftentimes, the bumper itself could be pulled back into positiion after a minor impact – because it was a heavy piece of chrome-plated steel. You could even do this yourself, because there was often no bodywork involved. You could hook up a length of heavy rope or something similar and tie the other end to a big tree and then gently reverse the car until the bumper returned to more-or-less its original position.
The bumper also protected exposed front and rear parts such as the headlights and tail-lights from being cracked by runaway shopping carts and the like.
Nowadays, almost every new vehicle – excepting some trucks – have front and rear ends that are covered by large plastic “fascias” that are literally clipped in place. These fascias, which are usually painted body color, are not designed to provide any protection at all. They are there merely to cover the structure behind it that is designed to absorb impact forces in a crash. The “bumper” is behind the fascia, in other words. It is hidden out of sight because it is not chrome-plated anymore – and you can thank environmental regs that have made it exorbitantly expensive to chrome-plate anything. Also federal regs requiring ever higher gas mileage. Aerodynamically slippeyr shapes – and seamless forms – help with that.
Plastic is also cheap and easy to form into various shapes and that is another reason why new vehicles – almost all of them – have their front and rear ends covered by these easily damaged and very expensive to replace plastic “fascias.” They have lots of tech” embedded in them, too – such as cameras and sensors that must also be replaced when damaged. That isn’t cheap, either.
You may also have noticed how thin and flimsy the sheetmetal is. The hoods of most new vehicles, for instance, are so delicate you could bend them by hand. if you wanted to. They are supported by little prop rods, because that’s all you need because the hood is so light. The fenders and door panels and so on are likewise almost paper-thin. Once again, to reduce weight in order to increase gas mileage or – more finely, to compensate for the weight added by “safety” regulations that can only be complied with by adding more weight to the underlying structure of the vehicle). Paradoxically, the typical new vehicle is safer – in terms of protecting occupants in the event of a crash – but it is also much more fragile in terms of its vulnerability to very expensive cosmetic damage.
Wouldn’t it be nice to know just how expensive?
This could and arguably should be done in the interests of disclosure. People have a right to know, don’t they? Especially since they’ll be the ones paying for it. Because we all pay for it – via the rising cost of insurance, which is rising chiefly because it has gotten very expensive to repair even “minor” cosmetic damage and the prospect of these losses accounts for the recent double-digits increases in pretty much everyone’s premiums. This includes those of us who have not bought a new vehicle with plastic-covered front and rear ends that have $1,500 plastic grills and $500-a-piece LED headlight assemblies extruding unprotected from them and half a dozen plastic fragile cameras around the perimeter. We pay more regardless because – so the reasoning goes – we might hit one of these fragile, easily damaged things and then someone’s going to have to pay for that.
It would be good to know before we buy (if we do buy) what it might cost to repair a new vehicle and it would be even better to know which makes/models are the flimsiest so we’d all know which brands are to blame for everyone’s rising insurance costs.
This need not (and ought not) be a government thing as it isn’t any of the government’s legitimate business to force anyone to pay for crash or expense testing. But private concerns could do it – in the manner of Underwriters Laboratories – which has for decades been testing various products and establishing voluntary standards that encourage manufacturers to comply because those that don’t come across as sketchy and so best avoided. 
New vehicles could be fender-bender tested and the resulting damage (and cost to repair) published. This would be valuable information, at least as much as crash test scoring. It’d be a way for all of us to understand just how much “safety” (and “fuel efficiency”) are costing us.
. . .
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BUMPERS: my first car was a ’50 Fleetline 2dr. It had spring-steel bumpers. The rear had a fist-size dent. I knocked it back into shape, from behind, with a hard-rubber mallet. Truly, “they don’t make ’em like they used to.”
How about the explosive bolts in the SAFTEEY-belt reels. They have to be replaced after an accident.
A guy I know drove into a ditch. The pillar airbags deployed, but I don’t think the steering wheel one did. Either way,
Instead of the seatbelt locking up when the driver were to start moving forward 1-2 inches, the seatbelt has a piece pf plastic fire out of a tube by explosives, into the reel mechanism in order to stop it and pull the strap tight with the quickness.
It deployed for the passenger simultaniously dispite there being no passenger. or the belt even plugged in IIRC.
The seatbelt reel is designed so it breaks itself every crash. Only 2 wire tho going to the explosive, so after removing the blockage by grinding away at the housing, the airbag computer doesn’t know that the explosive has been used up, and that the truck secretly no longer has this dumbass “pretensioner” feature.
The belt housing is designed to make it a major PITA, so that the situation above doesn’t happen.
https://youtu.be/C3oa5Q-C2YI?si=BbhN32XQsvxSEtjf&t=355
Morning, Steve –
And this is why I despise all this stuff. I wish we were to just say No! But then, we’re not free, are we?
“private concerns could do it – in the manner of Underwriters Laboratories”
Oh Yeah. Getting a Private Concern to do testing and establish Voluntary Standards would only lead to the Government making those Standards mandatory. If there is a demand for something, the Manufacturers will provide it. The Problem is a Automotive Illiterate Public which can’t even figure-out what Lane to drive in and a Ruling Body only too willing to increasingly micromanage our Freedoms out of existence.
Another problem is most people no longer enjoy driving. It has become a chore, not the joy it is. If you look at peoples facial expressions as you pass them on the road, many look unhappy or disinterested, just passing them makes many spoil for a fight. Not sure if that is a feature or a bug of the detachment built into the vehicles. Or, a side effect of the shitty lives the nanny state tries to corn hole everyone into. The decline in capable drivers stems from those who kill joy. Whats fun about driving a car if any ninety year old can do it?
IRL, I find the people who cry hardest for things like heated seats, back-up cams, key fobs, electric windows, enhanced safety devices, and all the other geegaws and gadgets that have led us to the current crop of overbearing, scolds of cars, are the people who drive least. And they are the ones manufactures cater to most.
Here in Michigan, hospitals run a “racket” when it comes to automobile insurance claims. Hospitals charge insurance companies two or three times the going rate for a procedure. The first thing out of a hospital billing department is “was the injury a result of a automobile accident?”
If yes, the bill-padding goes into effect…
Hospitals (and likewise doctors in general) do that with regular health insurance already. Nothing new under the sun.
My wife had an endoscope recently. The facility billed the insurance over $17,000 for a procedure that took all of 15 minutes. But the insurance only allowed a little under $2600. The rest? A write off for the provider (I mean on their taxes), minus the percentage we had to pay out of pocket. It’s a scam all around.
Those mid to late ’70’s bumpers made it fun to lightly bump into someone you knew when you drove up behind them, absolutely no damage to anyone or anything.
Hi John,
I can relate a personal experience that touches on this issue. I currently own a 2002 Nissan Frontier; I used to own a ’98. Both essentially identical except the ’02 has a plastic “fascia” while the ’98 had a metal bumper. I hit a deer in both. The ’98 had no serious damage; had to pull the bumper back out and replace a $25 sealed beam glass headlight. The ’02 had its “fascia” torn off – had to be replaced and repainted, along with a $75 plastic headlight. Total cost to repair was more than $1,500. I shudder to think of what it would cost to replace the “fascia” of the ’25 Range Rover I recently reviewed!
I bought a used Cayenne a couple of years back. Was shocked to discover recently that a new headlight “assembly” costs $8,000. That’s 1/6 of what I paid for the whole car. The headlight auto-levels when you are towing, and turns side to side when turning, so it works great, but if a little bit of water gets in due to a rubber seal failing with age, then you’re out those $8,000, since the electronics short out. I guess these break enough that salvage ones are impossible to find. My jaw is still on the ground.
‘Those mid to late ’70’s bumpers made it fun to lightly bump into someone’ — John Meyer
Yes — metal bumpers good! But my old G10 hippie van had organic bumpers — a hefty 4″x6″ plank on the front, and a svelte 2″x6″ on the back.
One night in Harlem NYC, a rude New York driver stopped a few feet behind me at a red light. I put the three-on-the-tree into reverse, popped the clutch, and gave him a little love tap.
The dude went stone berserko: peeled rubber around me, turned the wrong way down a one-way street, and appeared to hit 60 mph roaring through a tight gauntlet of parked cars.
Like aged leather, minor dings in organic bumpers lend character and distinction. 🙂
I worked for a local rental car company first full time job after high school. ‘74 Buick Century with the 5 mph bumper saved me – boss sent me to pick up stuff he wanted at the supermarket, I tapped the cement base for the parking lot light, not used to big ass cars. Arrg – I’m screwed. Nope, tiny scuff on the rubber trim whew.
We had rental trucks too, buddy wasn’t so lucky he backed a box truck into a light pole down it went. He got his pay docked for several months.
We would tap each other for fun when moving cars to different locations – stopped at a light, tap your buddy get out and scream at each other watch the horror on the other drivers. Ahh the simple fun in the simple ‘70s! 19 year olds having fun. Another rental outfit the lot rat took it too far. Picked up a brand new ‘74 Monte Carlo at the Valley Chevy dealer. Green River road lots of twisty curves. 9 miles in launches it into the river he survived his job did not.
Doesn’t the IIHS do crash testing the U.S.? That’s a private organization the is paid for by the insurance companies. It may have morphed over the years but it was originally I thought set up to crash test cars and judge occupant safety so the actuaries could do their calculations for your rates. The government may glom on to the results and probably has distorted things, just like insurance in the first place.
Exactly
IIHS (and thereby the insurance companies) does know what the damage costs are and uses that information to set rates.
Likewise any person with one iota of common sense can look at a vehicle and guesstimate damage costs if they care to.
We live in a world where the cost of a fascia for a cost of nearly any car part can be determined by a Google search or maybe a search of RockAuto for a close proxy if the vehicle is absolutely brand new and has no previous model year info available.
The reality is that despite the ease of access to unlimited information, the public is too lazy to use the internet for something other watch the latest viral YouTube or TicTok video.
The IIHS is the mortal enemy to anyone who drives a car, especially to people who drive well and enjoy it.
The original president of the IIHS was a person named William Haddon. He invented something called the Haddon Matrix which centered around the mechanisms of reducing injuries. A MAJOR part of that was the enforcement and reduction of speed limits. He was the first administrator of the National Traffic Safety Agency, which became NHTSA later on.
When he took over IIHS in 69 or 70, he drove the agency to do crash testing and other things. He pioneered in the work of making driving as distasteful as possible over the years.
He was succeeded by his acolyte Brian O’neill, another enemy of driving. O”neill would be seen on TV trying to advocate for and continue enforcemnt of the 55 mph speed limit.
What you say is probably true and would be the antithesis of spirited and conscientious drivers.
My point is that in a free market you would be allowed to choose to buy insurance or not and if you choose it then shop their brands and offerings. I’m not arguing the concept of insurance here. I can think of cases whether buying collective risk insurance might be financially better than just saving the money to cover. The cross-over point is on the catastrophic scale. Paying out of pocket for fender benders, teeth cleaning and a routine check up is almost uniformly cheaper. Having insurance you pay a relatively small installment compared to a massive hospital stay or multiple car pile up cost if you’re found at fault might pencil out. I’m also not arguing that market pricing is badly distorted due to the way things are. Maybe in a non-upside down world hospitals and vehicles damage would not cost so much that you couldn’t pay out of pocket for even big things. But those things are not current true.
But in any case, if you did want insurance then it would be reasonable to assume the nature of it suggests crash testing, lowering speed limits, seat belts might be things they would want to know about and see put in cars, thus price their product appropriately based on that data.
Again, not suggesting the current system is free or reasonable. Just saying that prima fascia IIHS and crash testing IS a private endeavor as Eric is hinting it should be. I don’t know the history or timeline, whether goverment saaafffffeeeettttyyyy nannies pre-dated IIHS or the reverse is true, that their lobbyists got laws changed to their favor.
Man, is this timely. Wife hit a deer a few months back and insurance totaled it. Kept it to fix. Still runs and drives great, no frame damage but it did deploy an airbag and seat belt pretensioner, and fixing that stuff is a real bitch and very expensive if you have a shop do it. My state makes it illegal to sell used undeployed salvage airbags. Then the airbag system module needs to be replaces and/or reprogrammed. The bumper cover/fascia and radiator support is actually pretty easy. Most of the rest of the damage is just smashed plastic.
Remember Saturn? GM’s non-GM product? One of the big selling points was that the body was mostly bolt-on plastic panels that could easily be replaced. IIRC they were also fairly flexible so if you did get into a fender bender the odds are it would just deform then bounce back. The word on the Internet is that they had a fairly high rate of heat expansion and so the gaps between body panels had to be fairly large, and they tended to rattle and rub leading to a lot of noise.
So GM being GM held on to the good idea (plastic) but cheaped out on materials (brittle plastic).
But another reason why the panels were such a good idea for Saturn is that they kept the same design for years, meaning the easily bolted on panels were also easy to come by. Today they make minor styling changes every year to make sure that you won’t be able to find the replacement panel in a few years.
Saturns with the SMC or thermoplastic panels were also VERY hail/dent resistant.
Great way to keep insurance premiums lower.
“Today they make minor styling changes every year to make sure that you won’t be able to find the replacement panel in a few years.”
Sure as long as “today” means back to at least the 50’s. Annual styling changes are nothing new. In fact you care to dig into the matter you’ll find that OEs now make less drastic changes annually to sheetmetal than they did back then.
The bigger issue today is that the electronic models and software are changing annually to keep up with government regulation. In many cases modules have to programmed with VIN specific information which makes it almost impossible to get a junkyard module and reuse it in a different vehicle. And of course the software and the code to re-flash modules is almost exclusively available to dealers only.
Sheetmetal is the least of your worries when it comes to costs or right to repair.
Morning, BID!
That’s true about the electronics but there was also a lot parts interchange compatibility once upon a time. For example, my ’76 TA shares many parts – including sheetmetal parts with other ’70-81 Trans-Ams. There are of course differences here and there, but you gnoe what I be sayin’!
I’m gonna push back. Same can be said for a 2000-2010 PT cruiser to pick an example.
The Chrysler 300, Charger, and Challenger platform was modified only slightly over the course of a 20 year run from 2005 through 2023? That platform is ancient. Yes there were mid cycle actions to update the interior and of course to comply with impact regs but that underlying platform ran for nearly 20 years with lots of part commonality between models.
I’m also going to pick an odd example as a counterpoint that even older cars sometimes changed frequently.
VW / Porsche 914 had a production run from 1970-1976 with about 100,000 made.
There are significant changes to between early cars 70’-73’ and late cars 74’ -76’ that prevent component interchange both of chassis components as well as some electrical components like ignition switches, column switches, etc. Late cars 75-76’ got 5mph impact bumpers that are unique to those two years.
The 911 is another example. Though it has been around in the same rear engine configuration and general silhouette for almost 60 years, the model was continuously evolving over multiple generations of body stylesand chassis components underneath. It even changed from air cooled to water cooled.
Your rants are beyond exhausting. Perhaps a hobby would be a good idea.
And also ’70 – ’81 Camaros.
Many GM parts back in the day interchanged. Suspension, brakes, carbs, wiper motors, even the window crank handles. Made junkyard salvage a breeze. I got a used radiator in ‘78 from a ‘77 wrecked Camaro that dropped right into my ‘70 Firebird. They sold me the adapters for the trans cooler lines that changed size the only mod needed.
My old GM key was even interchangeable with my Yamaha enduro, which was very good to learn when I lost. the bike key while swimming!
A couple of examples that cut both ways.
Toyota used parts that can in some interchange over 3 and 4 generations of vehicles. A 1978 pickup with a 1995 or even up to 1997 overseas. The sheet metal changed, although dimensions did not so you could actually take the whole body from a 1984 and put it on a 1994 frame despite being different generations. In some cases the parts will even exchange to other models, Corolla or Tacoma.
The other extreme is Ford in the 1970 and 1980s. I had a 1984 F150 that when you went to the parts store would have 3 different starter options and even mid year changes to a different water pumps on the same 302 engine. You had to know your VIN and build date to get the right part and even that wasn’t a guarantee.
“Jewish Lightening” is an expression used to describe the billions lost to insurance fraud often conducted by our favorite group of chicken swinging genocidal psychopaths.
Jewish lawyers are renowned for chasing ambulances looking for a “victim” in any fender bender. We will never know how much money each of us would save if we didn’t have Rabbis studying the Talmud not only to figure out why Yahweh forgives Jews for treating goyim like cattle, but also to figure out secret spells and potions to use to create Jewish Lightening.
I would bet that without all the looting and tikkun olaming coming out of the parasitical parallel Jewish state of Judea that the entire planet would be a garden of eden. In an honest Christian world we wouldn’t need to obsess about insurance costs for something as trivial as a fender bender or a hit curb.
Everyone get a good look:
“I would bet that without…[insert race/class/country/religion here] the entire planet would be a garden of eden.”
THIS IS PURE PROPAGANDA! Identity politics, class warfare, textbook case of “Divide and Conquer”. Keep the proles fighting among themselves, never to discover the Bilderberg Group, ect. Pissing in the internet pool.
————————————————————————
Eric, – this guy is your handler sent by the Southern Poverty Law Center, paid for by your government. An educated guess, if it’s not ChatGPT already. Designed to keep your ideas from spreading to page-rank and the general public. (10 years from now or Chyna today- designed to keep youir REALID enabled readers off domestic flights for antisemitism) This is the guy with the Swastica tattoo on his forhead sent to stand next to you because you go against the grain.
Morning, Steve!
Maybe. But I agree with Jefferson who said that the truth is safe so long as people are free to speak it – and that lies will always be exposed for the same reason, on the same basis.
LOL. Julius Streicher famously said:
Die Juden sind unser Unglück! (The Jews are Our Misfortune)
Today after the quintessential American Donald Trump dropped some of his “beautiful bombs” on Iran, the reality of what Jews have done to western civilization can no longer be denied. Jews are our misfortune.
Morning, Brosi –
I just posted something about this awful business; see here: https://www.ericpetersautos.com/2025/06/22/the-spray-tanned-chimp/
That looks like the bumper of a 1974 Monte Carlo SS. This monstrosity was already the result of federal “safety” regulations. They told us back then that these bumpers would help reduce insurance costs.
Two years that changed cars forever: 1974 (bumpers) and ’75 (smog)
“The first U.S. bumper regulations appear to have been part of NHTSA Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard No. 215 (FMVSS 215), “Exterior Protection.” They took effect in September 1972, so from a practical standpoint, they were enacted by most manufacturers for the 1973 model year. These 1973-only bumpers are often referred to as “2 ½-mph bumpers,” but that’s a bit of a misnomer. Standard 215 required that the bumpers protect safety-related systems and components such as lighting during 5-mph direct front impact tests and 2 ½-mph rear tests.”
Hi Brosi,
It’s a Laguna (Chevelle) SS, I think! And while I agree the 5 MPH bumpers were obnoxious affectations, at least they did protect the front end from expensive cosmetic damage!
That picture is of a ’73 Chevy Chevelle SS454 that was profiled in an early edition of Hemmings Muscle Machines. It’s one of the first copies of that now defunct magazine I bought some 20 years ago.