Modern cars are built somewhat different compared to cars thirty or forty years ago. Back then cars were built so strong, that if you ever back up and hit something, like a wall or a pole, the car would hardly had any scratch on it.
Nowadays car manufacturers make use of controlled deformable zones around your car’s chassis that are meant to break up first when your car is hit so that the impact energies will be dissipated and they will not reach the car’s passengers.
In fact, a recent survey conducted by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety revealed that the most expensive SUV repairing for a 5mph crash was around $3,300. Why was the repairing so expensive you may ask, for a back-up hit that happened at almost walking speed? The SUV has damaged its end gate and its rear window, beside from pulling the fender wells in.
The same survey reveled that between 1999 and 2003 seven of the 10 most expensive SUV repairing due to faulty back-ups were because the spare tire was situated on the end gate, causing significant damage to this part of the car.
Among those very expensive SUV’s to fix were the Toyota Rav4, the Honda CR-V, the Isuzu Trooper or the Land Rover Freelander. In all these cases, their owners had to pay more than $2,000 for a slow speed back collision.
You should know these facts if you are interested in buying a SUV. Yes, they seem solid and they are advertised to be able to go where normal cars cannot and sustain significant amount of pressure. However, even the minor crash can cost you many thousand of dollars in these SUVs.
Another relevant piece of information is the federal standard for car bumpers. 30 years ago there was a 5mps bumper standard, whereas today this limit has decreased to 2.5 mps.
However, this bumper standard only applies to small cars and not to large SUVs or pick-up trucks. Hence SUV’s and pick-ups have very large bumpers installed, repairing or replacing such an item can cost you dearly.
In fact, it is recently that the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety has removed from their testing procedures the rear pole crush test as car manufacturers had put increased pressure on the Institute to do so. This means that you are not able to know at what speed your SUV can withstand a back-up crash without sustaining significant damage.
Let us look at the prices for car rear bumpers to understand whey repairing or replacing a bumper can be that expensive. Repairing a plastic, medium size rear bumper will cost anywhere from $300 to $500. To replace it altogether will cost you from $800 to $1,100, depending on your car’s brand and size.
However, most modern cars include reversing sensors in the rear bumper or small video cameras for reversing. In this case, you can double the above prices, as new similar equipment will have to be installed, in addition to connecting all the wires to these accessories.
Statistics reveal that in the US alone there are more than 12 million rear end collisions each year and more than 8 million rear bumpers are replaced yearly.
Therefore, even if the speed of the crash is not at all significant, insurance companies pay a lot of money for repairing or replacing these parts.
In addition, you know that you need insurance; the company will only increase your insurance fee over the next years. The best advice one can get you is to drive carefully and safely.