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Just parked my daughter's car in front of the house and have put a scrape in the body-coloured bumpers. My own Terrano has so many scrapes on its Silver bumpers and most have appeared from nowhere. New car that I have ordered has plain plastic bumpers. Hoorah! Let's put an end to painted bumpers.
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Agreed! My Citroen C3 has body coloured inserts on the corners of the bumpers, i'd much prefer the black ones on the lower specs.
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Agreed - body-coloured bumpers are daft. Trouble is, most bumpers are not bumpers in the "old" sense of the word, they are just easily replaced bits of styled bodywork.
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The problem with standard black bumpers is that they soon start to turn light grey and make even a newish car look aged....
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I agree with coloured bumpers being a pain. Each one of our cars with these have all got scuffs from somewhere or other. To repair them is costly. What are bumpers for? Surely to absorb minor bumps and scrapes. A bumper should be able to be replaced at low cost not costing hundreds and hundreds to replace. Unfortunatly the modern bumpers form nearly the whole front or back of the car and still are not strong enough for the job.
I had a saab 900 (the square one) and a Ford Escort slammed into the back of it while at a T junction. I got out and the escort was a mess....all steam and twisted metal. I couldn't even see the point of impact on the saab...not a blemish. Now THAT was a bumper.
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>>The problem with standard black bumpers is that they soon start to turn light grey and make even a newish car look aged....
Correct. I gave up trying to make my '93 (not what you would call new i suppose) polo bumpers go and stay black
Hence, I bought a new one today: £42. Almost proving that "A bumper should be able to be replaced at low cost not costing hundreds and hundreds to replace"
For some reasons, some cars suit black plastic bumpers as opposed to fully body coloured ones. (Citroen Picasso and C2 for eg)
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Bumpers these days are nearly all little more than decorative trim. The most comical thing I ever heard in relation to bumpers was when a colleague ordered a Lotus Elite bumper and it arrived in packaging marked "Fragile, please handle with care"!
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L\'escargot by name, but not by nature.
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Someone reversed into my rear bumper on my Mazda 6. £485 to be replaced.
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My car, an 82 Granada Ghia, has proper chrome bumpers with large rubber overriders at the ftont and back - extremely handy as occasionally I have tapped the wall of my house with the overriders with no ill-effects - Bring back proper bumpers, over riders and real chrome!
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I agree completely. Some clown in a white car grazed my (red and unmarked) bumber, and no matter how carefully I touch it in or polish the bumper it will always look wrong to me. Progress? I think not.
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The progress was in the fact a steel bumper once hit.Stayed in the same position.Modern bumpers absorb the impact to a certain degree and return (depending how hard it is clobered)to its original position.meaning less damage occuring to your vehicle.And if you happen to hit a pedestrian-its a softer blow to them causing hopefully less injuries. Car design is as far as I recall.Being designed around pedestrian collision as well as cars.Old type bumpers in certain prangs had to be replaced anyway..So a few scrapes on a plastic bumper should be easily fixed
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Steve
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"So a few scrapes on a plastic bumper should be easily fixed"
That would be fine if the bumper wasn't simply a raised section of a much larger and expensive body moulding. I've no objection to bumpers being made of impact-resistant material, but they could at least be made easy and cheap to fix. Perhaps there's room for an ABS guttering conversion kit...
FWIW, my old Lancia had stainless bumpers with rubber inserts, which worked very well.
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Anyone know if the plastic bumpers on Volvos and SAABs are mounted on impact-absorbing mounts, like in the 1970s/1980s, so that they can absorb 5mph impacts without damage (except possible scrapes/cracks to the paint) ?
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Wasn't there a time when bumpers were softish and made of rubbers and were designed for, ahem, bumping into things.
*Looks fondly at Xsara with big black bumpers without a mark on them.*
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Anyone know if the plastic bumpers on Volvos and SAABs are mounted on impact-absorbing mounts, like in the 1970s/1980s, so that they can absorb 5mph impacts without damage (except possible scrapes/cracks to the paint) ?
No, at least for Volvo. The plastic case and foam inside is simply able to deform a little to shrug off minor parking incidents.
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Volvos had a shock absorber on either side But that still meant bumper had minor damage.Dont recall any one complianing then of minor damage.what do you want?
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Steve
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There is a solution to this, buy a basic Ford KA, Panda Active or the new Picanto S.
I'm sure it must be in the insurance companies interest to have black bumpers, the labour fees of painting must be highest cost of small crashes.
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I'm actually buying a Panda 4x4 where some of the bumper area is sort of greyish- black.
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Quote "Volvos had a shock absorber on either side But that still meant bumper had minor damage.Dont recall any one complianing then of minor damage.what do you want?"
Big bumpers like on the 1974 140-series ;-))
Could take substantial knocks without showing damage (like pushing a pre-fab garage along on its concrete base - wasn't me that tried this, by the way !)
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Bumpers should be sacraficial.
My 54 reg Nissan Primastar van(Renault Trafic with a better badge) has the black bumpers.
The front one now has a few gouges a couple of mm deep from a cornish wall, which I am not fussed about. I they get on my nerves, I'm sure there's a remidy out there that is designed for the common bumper. Now, it it was a colour coded pearlescent etc then I would be in trouble!
Also, my aunt bought a Ka a few years ago. The one she had was one of the last of that spec without colour coded bumpers. She saved a couple of hundred IIRC because it was the tail end of the previous years spec. I advised her to go for it. On no account would she want one with colour coded bumpers as she was certainly not about to fill in each minor scratch that appeared, or pay vast sums of money for someone else to do it.
H
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The progress was in the fact a steel bumper once hit.Stayed in the same position.Modern bumpers absorb the impact to a certain degree and return (depending how hard it is clobered)to its original position.meaning less damage occuring to your vehicle.>> had to be replaced anyway..
>>So a few scrapes on a plastic bumper should be easily fixed.
Not so with My Mondeo. The bumper is a thin lightweight skin with air behind it.
So so easy it split as I found out. Just notice how many Mondeos have a patch of gaffer tape on them.
Parking sensors are on my to do list.
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Not so with My Mondeo. The bumper is a thin lightweight skin with air behind it. So so easy it split as I found out. Just notice how many Mondeos have a patch of gaffer tape on them. Parking sensors are on my to do list.
Brings back fond(?) memories of Maestro bumpers - made of eggshell i'm sure.
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