Looking at these pics, I have to wonder how the Tuscon passes government 5mph bumper tests?

I'm sure there's impact absorbing stuff under there, but you can't tell me that the lift gate or the grill/headlights aren't going to get damaged in a low speed impact. I mean, there's like 1 inch of bumper, if that!



more pics here... http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Hyundai-Tuc...=item3359296bf2

LOL...

I said the same thing when I saw one in person.

Older post

No bumper sure does look cool though!

Govt no longer has the 5mph rule. That went away a few years ago now.

For awhile cars have become safer now but at the cost of damage during a crash.

Crumple zones work great but basically destroys a whole lot of stuff in the process.

I remember seeing a video on 20/20 or Dateline or something about how backing into a pole at 5 mph destroyed the back glass on some SUV and the astronomical cost to repair the damage.

Andy Rooney on bumpers:

Wow. Deregulation results in corporations not looking out for consumer's best interests -- choosing to make what sells "today" at the expense and peril of the consumer tomorrow.

Sounds familiar... kinda like the banking industry.

= (



I think the no-bumper-look LOOKS good, but I don't see how it makes any sense in practical terms. Has "bad idea" written all over it, if you ask me.


If the front end near-bumperless current elantra is any indication... yikes! Over $4K just for a low speed front collision.

No, they are still looking at the customers best interest. The car is safer, will sustain the damage to ensure the passengers walk away unhurt. How is that not looking out for the customers? Don't want to pay high repair costs, don't crash. That means putting your donut down, hanging up the phne and putting your paper away, quit playing with your ipod and actually paying attention to the car, the road and the conditions. I know, puts a real cramp in your style, but the rest of us would appreciate that.

^exactly. If some people actually paid attention to driving, especially at slow speeds like in this comparison, then there would be a lot less money spent of repairs. It only takes like a foot to stop from 5mph anyway.

First of all, I don't partake in any of those bad habits you mentioned, but thanks for the accusations. Second, "don't crash"?!? Are you serious? I don't even know where to begin with that. You act like people have a choice about it. For starters, why don't you try telling that to the permanently disfigured, disabled, and family members of dead love ones who are victims of drink drivers. They might tend to disagree with you -- I don't know, just a guess.

Third: yeah, vehicles are getting safer in a big collisions, but we're talking small ones here. How is no bumper better in any way at low speed impacts?

Natesi, I don't think Bob was accusing you personally of partaking in those habits, just more bitching about the general practice and the large number of people that do.

As far as low speed impacts, I'd have to imagine the majority are from people being distracted and not paying attention to driving. Sure there are the occasional accidental bumps from backing up and misjudging distance, but I'd have to imagine this is a small percentage. So in this case I don't see a need for a manufacture to design a bumper that withstands bumps from not paying attention. If anything they shouldn't and maybe the person not paying attention will learn a lesson if they have to shell out some cash.

Yeah, re-reading it, I think I freaked a bit. Sorry Bob-oh, buddy.

= )

No problem.

I did get a nice close look at one yesterday when I was ordering parts for Porky. All I have to say is "WOW!". Fit/finish, style and interior are above top notch.

Yeah yeah, you're opposed to 8 airbags and stability control and ABS and brake assist and lane-departure warnings and safety glass and seatbelts and collapsible steering columns and child seats and roof strength standards... pansies, all of us, I know. We should all drive Pintos to speed up natural selection even if we die when someone else caused the crash, or $15,000 cars with $4,000 front bumpers that the selfless, non-profit car manufacturers have installed with our long-term interests in mind.

OK, WTF? Are you just trolling me now? No where in this thread did I mention anything of the sort.

I'm guessing everyone has already forgotten that all new cars must meet pedestrian crass ratings as well, huh? Remember, we gotta make a car safe for a pedestrian to walk out in front of? That wonderful piece of legislation? Guess what, you;re now seeing the downsides. To make it safe, the from of the car MUST absorb the impact. How does it do that? By crushing, caving and collapsing. Guess what that does? Yep, causes damage to the vehicle.

Yes, please, lets have some more legislation for silly stuff. It never has any negative impact.

Just so I don't get accused of making stuff up again:

http://www.edmunds.com/ownership/safety/ar...31/article.html

Pretty soon they'll have cars designed in such a way that at the end of their life you'll put them near a steam, they will liquefy in pure H2O, and thus have a zero carbon footprint...

No more cars on cinder blocks in front yards? What are the west virginians gonna do for yard decorations?

It's a conspiracy. Corporations own the government.

= )

LOL What Bob was talking about was an idiotic goverment law not one wanted by manufactures. Which is the opposite of your comment. Once again a fail for liberal thinking.

Personally i think the look is great but I dont find it practical and the fact stupid federal laws led to it makes it worse.

You're failing to grasp the "conspiracy" part -- the manufacturers actually want the "idiotic government law", all while making it look like they don't. Hence, corporations owning the government.

= )

Why wouldn't corporations want this new law? I mean, think about it from their perspective: Rather than replacing just a bumper the entire skin of the car is made to crumple so that it absorbs small impacts more easily. They "sell it" as safety ("pedestrian safety", or whatever label they want to slap on it), get a law or some regulation passed, and laugh all the way to the bank. The republicans will say it's private industry regulating itself. The dems will say it's government protecting it's citizens. Who really knows, who really cares; it's irrelevant. This is the "story" they like to get finger pointers wrapped up in. Forget about that, the bickering of left/right is made to distract you. Big industry is in both side's pockets. In the end, rather than replace a bumper, we now have to replace $4K in parts. Of **their** parts -- kuching!!! $$$ Who do you think would be upset about that? Certainly not the manufacturer. They can't lose! Not only do they sell you the parts, but they JUST HAPPEN to have a outrageously expensive body repair shop too. How convenient.

We *are* all aware that dealerships make their money on parts and service, right? They can't pay the bills just selling cars (which is the manufacturers bread and butter).

BUT thank GOODNESS it crumpled so EASILY, they say!! Otherwise it could have done more damage.

Oh, OK -- now they are the heroes ("they" being who ever your particular hero is according to your/your party's "story" -- the manufacturer, the government, dems, repubs, whatever).

It's all a game.

You betcha I forgot...
Good link. Although it says the softer pedestrian-friendly bumpers are not used in the US because they don't perform well in the IIHS's 5mph bump-test. Ok, maybe that's changed since the article was written or maybe pedestrian safety affects bumper repair costs some other way. But I can't see how bumperless designs like the new Tuscon help either pedestrian safety or repair costs and I don't believe manufacturers are looking out for consumer's best long-term interests. Maybe Volvo. But really their mission is the same as all corporations, to maximize their profit. I think natesi covered that angle pretty well

You know, I really could care less if my car collapses like an accordion around the passenger compartment if it saves the lives of my wife and children.

Unfortunately, the insurance companies have to cover more damages and just pass the cost onto the consumers.

Safety does have it's price.

Yeah nothing like totals from 30mph accidents glad you dont mind paying for them. I call it liberal overkill you cant protect every idiot at the tax payers cost and expect to have a good economy witness the US now. We are not all equal we just play on an equal field. Thats all the constitution ever meant for us. Ill personally go as far as saving you should be able to drive whatever vehicle you like as long as it can do the speed limit where your driving and safty is a personal matter not the goverments.

So, I'm confused...

Are you for cars that protect the occupants or against them?

Well I think the govement legislation on safety pertaining to safe cars at the consumer and taxpayers expense and the taking away of choice is just wrong. Its once again legestional overkill for votes. Safe cars are nice and in most accidents old time reinforced bumpers were not only safer but cheaper to build and insure. Just for example in 1980 I was at a dead stop in a center turn lane in my 78 280z when hit head on by a 1973 buick century doing at least 40mph by the cops evidence. Yeah my bumper was pretty torn up the hood had damage over a 12 inch area about an inch to two inches deep i was fine (though pissed) the Buick had less damage and no driver injury. Cost of both cars combined less than 20k damage less than 1500. Now put that Tuscon or any other modern crumple zone cars including the XD Xd2s in that same accident and were looking a total and most likely airbag burns at least. Which cars are safer depends on type of accident would be my guess. Insurance costs are out of control now because of these disposable in minor accident vehichles.

Actually, we need to total the cars faster so we can send the scrap metal to China which they need to build their infrastructure. In exchange, they agree to buy our soon-to-be-worthless US debt securities -- well, until a new world reserve currency is installed, that is. Which China is calling for of course.

Hey, you guys all got your gold, silver, guns, ammo, seeds, and non-perishable food stockpiled, right?

Be ready.

= )

And the insurance companies love it!

I really think a combination of old style bumper and crumple zone would be best for all (except the insurance companies). Bumper absorbs the force up to a certain amount and then the body absorbs the rest.

I could care less about my car looking sleek and sexy. Get me from A to B and keep the occupants safe. Perform well within the constraints of the law (no need to go 110 mph when most roads max out at 75). That's all I ask.

Its possible to be sleek and sexy with bumpers, some or should i say most of the best looking cars in history had usefull bumpers unfortunately our leaders have legislated them into nonexistence. As far as the insurance companies loving it i see it as a double edged blade to them. Its all about votes i cant believe you still dont get it, our goverment as a whole both parties has become corrupt over time its a pattern of history in all civilization absolute power corrupts.

Sorry, I know I should drop it but I still can't fathom how removing bumpers on cars = votes for either political party.

You really do have a gift for inserting a political argument into absolutely any topic.

Thanks its easy to do though when commenting on remarks you make. Your for a nanny state im for independant choice. On almost any subject that your refering to your for more goverment im for less. Not to mention politics is what makes the world go round. Im for logic your more about taking the "politically correct" point of view. Guess we have to agree to disagree on almost everything.

Actually we don't.

I'm for a lot of things you would be surprised to hear. I've been labeled as a "commie leftie liberal" though and no matter what I say that's all some people will hear. That's another discussion for another topic though.

I agree though, cars should have bumpers for at least low speed impacts. It's safe and economical. But if given nothing, I'll gladly sacrifice my car 'ala crumple zones if it means people are protected.

Ok then how about a head on collision ill drive a early 70s era Lincoln you drive the Tuscon and do a head on at 30-40mph your airbags disabled to make it even contest and see who walks away if anybody. I am just not convinced that crumple zones and cars that cost 5k to repair 5-15mph bumps save anybody but damn does it cost. More over burdening legislation that costs much more then any benefit. You might not mind paying for it but i do.

I vote for going back to horse and buggy and when that fails, git up off yer azzz and walk it!

Yeah that works in a global economy come on man get real. Yeah i realize it was an attempt at humor/sarcasm but to what point?

heh...

Old vs new: Which of these cars would you rather be in?

Bel Air or Malibu?


Legendary 80's volvo "tank" vs new crappy economy car?

Not real hard to make a picture or a video look the way you want with a little research. I can come up with many more real life senarios where the older cars fared better at up to a 10th of the cost. That said im not against safe cars but let the market drive the demand and not the legislators.

OK, I'm waiting... Where are your findings? And "no" you cannot pull hearsay out of your butt, or some crash you had back in 75, as "evidence" -- sorry.

Oh, IF you can actually come up with something, I'll be sure to tell you that you can make the video (or report, or whatever it is) look the way you want with a little research. Be ready for it.

= )

Of course these are just two videos. Take it for what it's worth. But they obviously prove (at a minimum) that not all older cars (not even ones legendary for safety) are safer in all circumstances.



Well, ummm that's pretty much what crash ratings are about. It's not like all cars are equally as safe, yet all cars on the road have passed minimum mandatory crash tests. Consumers can choose where safety ratings weigh-in with them and vote with their purchasing dollars. That's exactly what is already happening. You would like to separate things into neat little boxes and label them as pure black or pure white systems, but nothing is that way, nor will it ever be in the real world. What we have today surrounding car safety is a hybrid system -- of certain laws that mandate certain minimum levels of safety AND crash ratings (with associated insurance premiums) that consumers can take into consideration and affect buying decisions.

Look, if Honda came out with an accord next year that got horrid (but barely legal) crash ratings, don't you think they would lose sales? Hell yes they would!

What you want is a free market where the silent hand determines everything. For better or worse (not that it matters since it doesn't exist), there's no such thing as a free market, anywhere. It's a pipe dream that will never exist except as a hypothesis in text books. You're always going to have laws, legislation, markets manipulated by "unnatural" (non-"silent hand") outside forces, stimulus packages, bail outs, tax breaks, corruption, etc.

Actually there was a free market created by the original constitution and its what made america great. Sounds to me like your happy with a few elected officials telling you what to do, oh well i guess a lot of people believe everything they hear or see on youtube no matter how misleading. Myself and quite a few others would rather have self determination. Crash ratings are created to come out with desired effect anything aquired from the tests that dosnt meet the desired effects is discarded. Im 52 years old and 30+ years of that i was privy to what the goverment hides and distributes you my son are nothing but naive in your beliefs. Hey man i got youtube videos of bigfoot you believe in that too?

Some interesting statistics Here.

And note the final sentence:

"NHTSA has issued relatively few regulations since the mid 1980s; most of the vehicle-based reduction in vehicle fatality rates in the U.S. during the last third of the 20th Century were gained by the initial NHTSA safety standards issued from 1968 to 1984 and subsequent voluntary changes in vehicle design and construction by vehicle manufacturers."

That would make the safety designs market driven no?

tHAT's not entirely true either pops. Airbags, dual front air bags, pretensioning seatbelts were are all gov't mandated requirements, like TPMS and stability control.

Maybe those were what the first part of the sentence was referring to? When did airbags first come into use as well as pretensioning seatbelts? Those could have been mandated in the period mentioned with a certain time frame for inclusion in the vehicles, right?

aIRBAGS 1991, dual front in 1996 and not sure on the seatbelts.

Thanks

Thanks but your way off base. It's you who are living in a dream. You've bought someone's reality and now it has become your own. You've identified with your thoughts so much that it is who you think you are and who you think others are. And you think you're superior for it (becuase you think you know what is best for everyone) and everyone else is dumb. That's not enlightenment and that's not truth.

Anyway, the constitution is a framework, like a theory. We don't follow it. Ergo, free market has never existed. Google it. Or is everything on the internet poor news too?

Sadly youtube is probably a more credible news source (not that I use it as such) than your television. At least there are free thinkers on there expressing honest, unadulterated opinions. Your TV news is produced and sponsored by corporations and for corporations. You wont find free thinking, nor much truth there, as it does not exist. It's drinking the kool-aid right from the tap. Sure the IIHS video was obviously trying to make them look like the greatest thing since sliced bread -- ignore that crap. But maybe you failed to see the steering column nearly STABBING the driver???????

I'm still waiting on those reports that says older cars are safer. They don't exist dude. For better or worse, with legislation and corporate sponsored "non-profit" organizations, cars are safer today -- even if a minor bump causes a ridiculous 4K in damage.

Yeah i guess myself and 100mil or so older folks that survived those old killer cars were just lucky.

Actually, a lot of older folks were just lucky if it was a serious collision.

Somewhere in this debate is that products, choices and the world in general is too complex. When people say "free market," and "market driven," I picture a bare-bones situation where you only have car manufacturers and car consumers. The problem is cars are complicated and we can't personally crash-test cars before we choose one. So we need something besides consumers and suppliers, we need another kind of organization, e.g. NHTSA or IIHS or Consumer Reports that provides consumers with the information some manufacturers might withhold. That's just to INFORM the consumer.

The other argument is that the non-expert public in general can't be trusted to make the best decisions even given the best information. If you find that offensive, then you probably object to seatbelt laws and all the required safety equipment in cars today (airbags, ABS, stability control, safety glass, etc). We have lots of people like that in this club, but you won't all go to the same lengths I bet. How many of you would object to bumper repair cost legislation? What about airbag requirements? Or TPMS requirements, because you know, all good drivers check all four tire pressures every time they drive off, right?

Here's an example of protecting people from their own stupidity: say a company produced tires and managed to sell them at profit for $5 each instead of the usual $50-$100. Say their quality was so poor that 1% of these tires exploded at 70mph. You don't think some people would buy them? Sure not us, who read car mags and hang out at car forums and like our cars and driving. But some people who don't care about cars or driving would buy them. They'd just rationalize that 'granma' never drives that fast fast, or they'd get the 'cheap' tires "temporarily" until they can afford better ones (which they'll forget to do), or put those on the car to sell the car with 'new tires' to someone else who doesn't know anything about tires or cars. It's a stupid decision because the cost of their lives, their passenger's lives and the other motorists they endanger is astronomically higher than the price of better tires, but they won't think about that. You could be all Darwininan and heartless and call it natural selection, but what about their passengers? Is it natural selection for getting into a car with someone who buys cheap tires? Or they people they crash into? You can't sue someone who's dead, and it's pointless to sue someone who couldn't afford new tires anyway. The cost to society of letting them make that choice is higher than the cost of regulation.

I get the personal freedom argument, but I'm glad there's some minimum safety standard products have to meet. Our toaster broke last week and I went out and got another cheap toaster. I didn't take my calipers to measure the gauge of wiring they used on each toaster, I was just glad I live in a country where I can buy a cheap toaster and someone else has worried enough that it's not going to kill me in my sleep.

I've made myself clear on this old ass argument before, no need to rehash a rehashed rehash. Basics: If you're too fucking stupid to operate a car, don't.

True, but remember that bumper sticker in 'Forrest Gump'?

I can do all I want to ensure both my (and my occupant's) safety and that of the people around me, but if someone else fails a certain standard of safety be it in operation or maintenance of a vehicle I could very well come into their sphere of ignorance/stupidity/malice and my goose gets cooked.

And a giant meteor could land on your head when you type your response.

How about instead of nannerizing our cars to the hilt (working for toyota well isn't it?) we actually TEACH people how to drive and the importance of paying attention when you do. How about instead of coming up with more retarded legislation from people who likely haven't driven a car in 1 years we actually teach people how to AVOID the accident?

You know.. last night I'm on my way home at 6pm. Fairly normal heavy late rush hour traffic. Through construction zone, it's 12 degrees and there's still a little slush and ice in spots. Of the 20+ cars I passed or passed me in my commute home want to guess how many were NOT on their cell phones? 1. No lie. And she had a death grip on the steering wheel because she was scared shitless. EVERY car I came in contact someone was either dialing, texting or had it plastered to the side of their retarded heads yapping away, half of which were gesturing with the one hand they were supposed to be DRIVING with.

How about we not fuck up the world for the people doing things the right way, how about we teach and enfore the morons to do it the right way?

Honestly, those are all great ideas Bob, but you're talking about forcing people to do those things. Which means laws and regulations. Which means your just traded nannerizing our cars for nannerizing people. Ultimately it's still a nanny state.