okay, for those who missed watching Dateline yesterday. Here is the video segment from Dateline of this latest round of tests.

Dateline

 

What a dumb premise - does an 'expensive car' mean less expensive anything???

 

actually..the premise was "does paying more for a car mean better built bumpers" and the test this time around was NO.

 

One problem is the car might LOOK something like THIS:



On a tangential note: Porsche was able to build a car with 5mph bumpers that didn't look butt-ugly between 1974 and 1989. Why can't anyone do it now?



1976 Porsche 912E, with US market 5mph bumpers.

 

Strange.

In Canada, the 5 mph bumper requirement was never relaxed. So technically the TSX should have 5 mph bumpers. Or do we get different bumpers up here too?

 

You know, thats quite possible. I recall that with the previous generation Imprezza, we here in Canada never got the nice big fog lights that the US got. And the reason was they couldnt pass our bumper regulations. My point is that its very possible that the same model car has a different bumper in canada.

 

Another story.

What's all the fuss about? If someone runs into your back bumper, they pay the cost of repair. If you hit something, you deserve to pay anyway. Right?

 

The fuss is that it may affect insurance premiums.

 

But it's already widely known the "Luxury" brand parts/repairs cost more than "regular" brands.

http://www.hwysafety.org/vehicle_ratings/ratings.htm

For example, look at the other Low Speed tests, almost all of the other cars in the Luxury categories were rated as either Poor or Marginal. But in contrast if you look at the actual passenger protection type crash tests the are generally all rated as Good.

If the TSX comes back with poor ratings in the passenger proctection related tests then I might be worried, otherwise I think this information is something that Insurance companies already knew or suspected.

 

Which is why the insurance rates are already pretty high. Again, what's the big deal?

 

And if all of us TSX drivers stay out of accidents the rates will decrease. . .:P

 

I think the fear is that the TSX performed even more poor than expected. It was even lower than the TL. So perhaps insurance will still go up because of it. NOt a big deal I guess, but this is issue I think.

 

Believe me, if insurance companies can increase their rates for any reason, they will.

 

Those DATELINE bastards~! cuz of them we are looking for a raise in insurance...

argh~

 

dateline didnt do the test, they are just reporting it.

 

ATTENTION VIDEO ONLINE!

for all of us that miss the TV program, MSNBC has the video available for us right now. It's under 4 minutes long.

 

If you exclude the costs for the repairs from backing into a pole (which is pretty easy to avoid), the TSX results are in line with the other tested cars. Still not a great result, but not as bad as first portrayed.

 

But it can also look like this:

 

I posted the link to the video on the previous page.

 

I guess the issue is that we'd rather pay $600 than $1,600.

 

The sad part of this whole issue is the auto manufacturers inability or unwillingness to "go the extra" step in providing what is needed in terms of safety. Granted, a 5 mph bumper test would probably cause more pain and suffering when it comes to insurance premiums and damage cost than actual bodily damage.

Even my 9-3, which is one of the safest cars on the road (5 star crash test rating) still only came in as "marginal" in the bumper ratings.

 

If only it came in a sport package.... that would be cool.

 

Did anyone read the article or pay attention to the video?

6 cars in all. What does that even really mean? I'm going to go with "not much."

I have a feeling that if they could do it and the consumers would pay for it, they would do it.

 

Not according to Transport Canada. Here's the list of US vehicles permitted to be imported to Canada.

http://www.riv.ca/english/TC_admis_list_nov03_Eng.PDF

Cars listed with ** need to have their bumpers modified to meet the 8km/h standard. The only Honda or Acura that needs this is the 4th gen Civic HF.

 

Looking at the list pretty much any sports car barring the porsche's and ferrari's are banned like the vw r32, evo, and the audi s4's, s6's, and rs6's

 

I dont know if this really tells the true story. Having a car imported from the US may not be the same as having a manufactorer sell a car in Canada. As I mentioed eariler, the 98-01 imprezza rs had a completely different bumper in canada than it did in the US (we couldnt get the nice big fogs here in Canada). The reason was the US model didnt meet our bumper standards, yet that particular car is not listed as non-admissable. So I guess I'm still thinking its possible that the Canadian TSX bumpers may be better than the US bumpers.

 

Last year, I gave my '93 Nissan 240SX SE to my cousins in Toronto. The 240SX has the passive restraint system (motorized belts) in it. It was typical of Nissans and many cars sold in the US to have those seat belts back in that time. My cousins didn't have problems registering my old car in Canada, probably because of the car's age. Also, they didn't have to change the speedometer to km/h, bumpers, or the motorized seat belts.

 

From what I can tell by looking at the IIHS ratings, the heavier the car, the poorer it did on the low speed crash tests. Since all bumpers are made to adhere to the 5-mph restrictions, but the weight of the cars are different, is it not possible to conclude that instead of the bumpers being the problem, the car's weight is the real culprit?

Look at the IIHS website that someone linked earlier in this thread and see for yourself. The small cars, overall, faired better than the larger cars. The bigger the car got, the worse the ratings.

 

It's not like they are using an "off the shelf" bumper system for the TSX. They had to design it specially for the TSX. The weight will make it harder for engineers to design a good bumper, but their design still has to conform to the 5mph standards.

 

An Audi A4 was tested at 3569 lbs, about 300+ more than the TSX, and also received the highest bumper rating (Good), so we can toss the Weight Theory out the window...

http://www.hwysafety.org/vehicle_rat...dmod.htm#98002

 

Eh...oh well, was just a theory.

 

that's why when I got my TSX. My insurance agent told me it is Tier-5, and my MDX is Tier-6.. So I am paying 200 more on my TSX vs my Wife's MDX... .
AS for the pricing for TSX.. They already coming down a lot.
I got my TSX Navi for $500 over invoice with free protection package.. Someone here got even better deal at $400 over invoice with spoiler and protection package..

 

I got mine 500 under invoice with free all-weather mats.

 

I'm wondering how much of this "repair cost" is based on how much price gouging a manufacturer does on its parts. In other words, since most of the Japanese auto makers charge so much for parts (sometimes rightly so, since the parts are either higher quality or manufactured in lower quantity), that automatically makes their cars more expensive to fix.

If this is true, you could have a domestic car that sustains more damage than an import, but cost less, since the parts cost less.

If they're looking at price for a body shop to fix it, are labour rates figured in? Do all shops charge the same amount for labour? And are they using the same body shop every time to estimate costs?

The offset crashes I can see make sense, since they judge how well a car did just by measuring. But, there has to be some wiggliness in how they measure the bumper tests. To me, they're measuring the cost--not the actual performance. I think it'd be nice to have both measurements.

 

Keeping in mind these ratings are based on repair costs...The Accord gets good rating the TSX doesn't. So why is that considering they are pretty much the same car? My guess is the lack of HID headlights on the Accord and other models that ranked better in the test. HID lights are very costly and I'm sure sustain some damage in the 5mph tests. The repair costs for these more expensive units are factored into the cost to repair. Just because insurance companies test the car and think it sucks based on the money their greedy asses have to shell out doesn't make it an unsafe car. It's just to get some press and something to back up the stupid high rates they want to charge you to insure it. Insurance companies pay for these tests and use them to set rates for consumers. You'd have to be stupid to think they wouldn't give a car a worse rating to help justify passing on the higher repair costs to owners who have to insure them.

D.

 

Cars that get "good" ratings sustain almost no damage whatsoever in a 5 mph bumper bash. You're allowed to scratch the paint on the bumper cover and get a "good" rating, but that's about it. Tears, etc. in the cover push you down into the "acceptable" rating because they cost hundreds to fix. Structural damage to the bumper in addition results in the "marginal" rating. Body damage gets you a "poor".

The TSX bumper did not protect the body (specifically the trunk lid was damaged if I recall) the 5 mph bash, so you're talking the difference between almost $2000 in repairs vs. 0$ in repairs for a car with a "good" rating.

 

UGH. I was rear-ended yesterday. (So I searched the forums for replacement bumper and found this thread.)

The damage was minor, but I still need to get it fixed. It's mostly just scratches, so hopefully it won't be TOO bad. Will they have to replace the whole bumper? The other driver's insurance will have to pay, so HOPEFULLY my rates won't go up, but we'll see.

It was an Isuzu Rodeo that hit me, but luckily her bumper was fairly low and didn't hit me any higher and damage the trunk. I had slammed on my brakes to avoid hitting the car in front of me, but after I was rear-ended, I hit the car in front a tiny bit. There's also one scratch on the front bumper, but very minor, and no damage to the car in front of me.

 

reminds me of how nVidia got caught tweaking their card to perform well on 3D-benchmark programs.