I saw the Saturn commercials a few times and I think the dent resistant doors are a great idea is there a reason that this did'nt catch on? I sure would'nt mine having it on my TL. Whats your comment on this.

 

Plastic doors, a la Saturn, allows more road noise to seep into the car. Plastic also expands and shrinks quite a bit more than steel with temperature changes requiring Saturns to have huge and sometimes uneven door panel and fender gaps. The steel doors will dent and stretch with impacts but the plastic doors will crack and literally shatter if hit hard enough in moderate to heavy accidents. I've seen a few Saturns that had doors and front fenders ripped apart like they were made of glass or fiberglass...much uglier than a dented door panel. Hope this helps.

dsc888

 

yeah for safety reasons i would not want to own plastic doors. i much prefer the metal that will bend and absorb some more impact. just not comfortable with the whole shattering thing. i can live without dent reistant doors.

 

Thanks, yes it did help I did'nt know about all those facts.

 

http://media.skoopy.com/vids/vid_00058.wmv

 

Aluminum is the way to go. Strong. Light. Expen$ive though.

Audi A8. NSX. A few other cars..

 

ROFLMAO

 

Although it's repost, still super funny...

 

That's what happens when your friends are all rocket scientists and they hook up the tow rope to the bumper shock instead of the towing recovery hook. Then again he is driving a Geo Storm............

 

Steel is typically 10-20 times stiffer than auto plastic, no to mention considerably stronger and tougher in an accident. If you want a stiff, solid feeling car structure, you do not make it out of the type of plastic used in Saturns (race car type carbon fiber composites are an exception).

 

Plastic panels also cause lots of painting problems, specifically repainting. On the old Fiero, bodyshops used to hate them because the plastics would take paint differently, age differently, require different treatments for different plastics (to do right), etc. A plastic-bodied car also will weigh more because (as someone else implied) the structure for collisions has to be underneath the plastic.