White van man strikes again.

[BobC]

Driving home yesterday, turn off the roundabout and traffic is stopped in front of me to let an ambulance down the road. Pulled into the side and came to a halt, unfortunately the white van driver behind me decided to keep going and ran into the back of my c class. Almighty bang and I got out expecting the back end to be mangled. Fortunately not much damage, but boot is a bit stiff shutting.
Going to Dentect on monday to have damage assessed.

To be honest, I could be done without the hassle as we're driving down to England in 10 days. Hopefully will be all sorted before then.

 

[219]

I feel for you : I have had the same thing twice !

Stopped at the bottom of a motorway slip road waiting to join a roundabout , I was rear ended by a dozy individual who 'did not see me ' !

A year later , stopped behind someone waiting to turn right , 'WVM' decided to get up close & personal with my 300TE .

In both instances my towbar took the brunt of the impact saving me from serious damage and inflicted same on wrongdoers . I would never have a car without one .

 

[Aoraki]

I feel for you : I have had the same thing twice !

Stopped at the bottom of a motorway slip road waiting to join a roundabout , I was rear ended by a dozy individual who 'did not see me ' !

A year later , stopped behind someone waiting to turn right , 'WVM' decided to get up close & personal with my 300TE .

In both instances my towbar took the brunt of the impact saving me from serious damage and inflicted same on wrongdoers . I would never have a car without one .

All the force is just moved from bodywork to chassis though

 

[Will]

Yep - for low speed shunts (eg 5mph) the bumpers won't normally be damaged, and for higher speed shunts the towbar will probably end up 'writing the car off' due the forces involved, I've seen/heard of this a few times.

In more serious accidents, surely the crumple zones and the other safety features of the car are a better bet than a steel towbar?

Good for stopping people parking too close though I expect

 

[219]

For a relatively low speed shunt , as both of mine were , the towing bracket will distribute the impact across several strong parts of the chassis , which can withstand it without distorting . The car suffered no ill effects and ran fine over the subsequent 7 years and 100,000 miles I kept it for .

All I had was scratched bumper and tailgate paintwork , one cracked tail light lens and one broken piece of plastic trim on the tailgate .

The other vehicles had to be recovered due to burst radiators , smashed headlamps , crumpled bodywork etc .

 

[Will]

Yep - but if you were rear-ended in most cars with a towbar at say 15-20mph+, the car could be badly damaged, where as the bumper will absorb some of the impact and spread the load.

A new bumper or rear panels is less of a problem than a bent chassis. I've heard of this a few times, one where someone had an Auto car that they weren't used to, reversed it hard into something (wall IIRC) and the other was someone who bought a car from me, their own car had been written off as it was rear-ended. From a glance it looked ok (bumper/boot etc looked perfect) but it was badly distorted underneath.

Useful for towing and obviously helps stop people bumping your bumper, but in a moderate rear-end accident I wouldn't want one!

 

[iscaboy]

The long and short answers are the same, anything more than a "parking" bump, eg sub 5 mph, you take the car to be inspected.

No exceptions.

I have lost count of the number of people who have been in these sorts of "bumps", seen and found no damage of any kind, only to discover serious (serious as in financial write off) problems down the road.

Towbar / no towbar just changes how the energy is distributed around your car, it has no effect whatsoever on the amount of energy exchanged in a "bump".

As others have said, under some circumstances towbars can make matters worse, due to their rigidity.

I always, always, always check the boot floor skin and underneath and shutlines on any car with a towbar before buying, OK, I check these things anyway, but if the car has a towbar I make an especially thorough check. I've found more cars with damage that makes me walk away than cars that I have bought.

My old Olds Delta 98 had bloody great damped bumpers, and the bumpers were used to jack the car up, that was factory standard. Quite a different story to a Merc.

 

[Carl Gosney]

One of my m8s was bump on his towbar everything look ok but chassis was damage when look at proper.

 

[219]

I agree that a lot will depend on individual cases .

My 300TE had a very substantial bracket that braced across the back crossmember and also had two very substantial 'legs' which bolted to and reinforced the two longitudinal members which ran the length of the boot floor either side of the under floor storage areas and thus was pretty strong .

I have , on the other hand , seen other brackets which just bolt through thin panels such as the bottoms of wheel wells which would deform easily .

While nothing will prevent damage from a severe collision , the 'right' type of bracket can offer a lot of protection against a moderate one , as well as inflicting damage on the wrongdoer who hits you from behind

 

[BobC]

Getting my car back tomorrow morning, after having bumper and crossbar behind it replaced and boot resprayed. Hopefully it will be as good as new, but is there anything I should be looking for when I get it back? Apart from the obvious overspray.

 

[BobC]

Got it back this morning, and have to say it looks good. Relieved:bannana:

 

[Dai rees]

Just check that you can get the Spare Wheel in and out of its well, they have been instances where the boot floor has moved and "pinched" the spare wheel

 

[BobC]

Thanks for that, I'll have a wee look.