Thank God for HD bumpers...

@cvisinho I'm glad your child is OK. I hope your ankle and spine aren't damaged. Good luck!

 

I have the same rear bumper and often worry if it would help or hurt a rear impact.

 

Hoping for a speedy recovery for you as well. I never thought a rear end collision would give me back issues, but it did. Get treatment for you and the kiddo as soon as you can, as it's going to be on insurance's dime anyway.

 

As several of us have already stated, since the HD bumper is stronger / stiffer and does not absorb the impact as much as the stock bumper, more of the crash energy is passed on to the truck frame and thus the passengers. On a smaller hit, the HD bumper will probably prevent damage. Pick your poison.

 

yup

 

I don't remember a soft or absorbent bumper when I pulled mine off. It appeared to be a cheap plastic cover on a small block of aluminum bolted to each frame rail. As far as a head on collision, if the crumple zone is located a few feet behind the bumper, why would it matter if the part in front of it is more rigid? It does seem like if the frame is supposed to separate from the aluminum under lateral stress, a steel brace would require more force to accomplish this.

 

It would be interesting to see if the steel would cause a deflection or prevent a crumple in a situation like this.

 

End result = me getting a whole new bed essentially. tailgate, bumper, tow hitch and bedsides getting re painted. All new badges which I might switch up, and I already have new bedside decals from @CBoy808 that I can finally put on.

 

That aluminum crash bar, cans, radiator, etc will all buckle in a collision. It may not be in the "crumple zone", but the more "squishy-ish" stuff to crush and collapse, the more energy gets dissipated.

Plus steel bumpers bolt to the frame, which in a crash basically shortcuts all the soft stuff and distributes to everything attached to it. Cab, bed, etc.

 

I'm not arguing that if you put a bunch of padding between an impact it won't help. My argument is that the amount provided by the crap under a stock bumper just seems negligible when you consider how much force is exerted in an impact and all the variables at play in collisions. If his bumper adds 100lbs of vehicle weight, that would offer him more protection in a collision with another vehicle. Does 100lbs negate the lack of a 2" aluminum bar & .25" plastic's cushioning effect in front collisions? Studies by IIHS & statistics prove the benefits of a higher gross vehicle mass.

The real question here should be:

Does the extra 2.5% gross vehicle mass and increased deflection/rigidness have an increase or reduction of safety over the stock configuration?

The funny thing is that the original post is regarding an aftermarket bumper in a rear impact and we're arguing frame rigidness in frontal impacts. His truck probably came with a stock steel bumper and a hitch. How many people against plate bumpers remove their hitch when not in use for safety to reduce "buckle in a collision"?

 

As an retired Mechanical Engineer, I look at the whole debate on HD bumpers a little differently. What most people don't understand is just how much design and engineering work goes into a new vehicle to make sure it meets all government crash standards. There are literally thousands of hours spent designing and testing these systems on very expensive computer systems before the first prototypes are even built. Then those prototypes are crashed to make sure they behave like the computer simulation said they should. Time after time during this process, manufacturers discover that seemingly minor changes can have significant (positive and negative) effects on how a vehicle reacts in a crash. But what they finally send out the door as a finished vehicle is designed to meet the standards.

Getting back to aftermarket bumpers, something the OEM does that nobody in the aftermarket bumper business does is look at the whole system. The bumper is just part of the crash energy management system in a vehicle. And here's the biggie; if you change any part of the system, you may have messed up the whole system. There is most definitely a place for HD bumpers in the marketplace - for specific applications. But if I bolt one to my truck, I would do so understanding that the crash worthiness designed into the truck by the manufacturer is no longer valid.

 

Another Tacoma saved by an aftermarket bumper.

 

Right. I think we all understand R&D on the vehicles we drive is usually measured in years, unlike the aftermarket components we put on them. As someone who also works in engineering, I can tell you from my experience that my primary goal is meeting customer specifications by the most affordable and timely means possible. I've never worked in the auto industry, but looking at many of the parts I've pulled off my truck, price & weight were much more important than safety.

All this automotive safety talk reminds me of Edward Norton's spiel on car recalls in Fight Club. When I googled it I found a bunch of information on calculus of negligence. It is definitely not inspiring more confidence in my vehicles safety, lol.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SiB8GVMNJkE

 

I had no HD bumper or stock bumper, but can I get in? LOL. Glad to hear you and the baby are ok. My wife and I got hit stopping at a stop light that was green. We would have blocked the street had we entered the intersection. The guy who hit us said he was going to turn right and looked at his phone. It was a low speed impact, 25mph or less. So I had no bumper but that is not all. My bed had been extended 10 inches. There was no frame under the bed where it was extended. My truck was lifted 3 or so inches. His was lower. When he hit my truck, he went under. You can see from the photos. He was driving a truck he had not yet purchased. He was driving it because his car was in the shop from a collision from his (parents). Lucky for me he had full coverage due to a bank loan on the car that was in the shop. The insurance carried over to the not yet purchased truck. I did also have uninsured motorist. The insurance company payed out 7,130.00 for the damage to my truck. With the money I got a new snugtop display bed for 500.00and had it painted for 600.00. So 1,100.00 and I got it fixed. That left a little meat on the bone for mod's!!!!! LOL

 

Glad that you and your little head is ok.

To use a aviation phrase from my dad, "when you are flying a plane, you have one job to do, fly the damn plane!"

This translates to any vehicle. I see way too many driver's that are distracted. Men and women talking/texting on cell, women farding, people reading books, magazines, newspapers, looking for crap everywhere around them in car. And auto manufacturers aren't helping by having complex in dash displays.

 

You do realize that those pictures show a relatively low speed (less than 10-15 MPH) impact right? And since the car submarined the truck, the "soft tissue" that I've mentioned in previous posts absorbed most of the impact. Shoving a 6,000 pound truck forward 2 feet just further proves it was a low speed impact. Two feet is next to nothing in an impact.

But, in a low speed impact like this, a HD bumper would indeed protect the truck from damage. As previously stated though, in doing this, it would transmit more of the impact to the passengers.