just wondering when you modify your front bumper does it compromise the manufactures design of crush zones and their relationship with safety features? Example, large super strong bumper, impacts another truck. Does the airbag inflate when it should to protect the driver and passenger? I know the safest vehicles are designed to absorb impact energy so it does not transmit to the occupants. The vehicle gives up its life so I keep mine.
Big bumpers impact on safety
- Thread starter SWUtah
- Start date
This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate
links, including eBay, Amazon, Skimlinks, and others.
MScruiser
obsessive-compulsive oppositional-defiant wise-ass
Some do and some don't. Depends on who's bumper you buy. Most manufacturers will state weather or not they are airbag compliant. The bumper will surely affect crumple zones, but that doesn't necessarily have to be a bad thing. It only means that if you have hit a crumple zone after going through the big heavy bumper first, you can better believe that you are going to have to replace everything around the bumper, as it is going to destroy everything it comes into contact with in a collision. Does that make any sense?
- Thread starter
- #3
So air bag compliant means the bag would go off at the manufactures designed time in an accident? If so then it would not interfere with driver safety. 
I assume you're just talking about the bumper covers, correct? The bumpers themselves are actually a part of the frame, and modifying them in any way will DEFINITELY affect the crash safety of the vehicle. I'm guessing you're talking about the plastic/fiberglass cosmetic bumper covers. Those are pretty much completely for show, but will usually have foam underneath them for low speed (<5 MPH) impacts
MScruiser
obsessive-compulsive oppositional-defiant wise-ass
So air bag compliant means the bag would go off at the manufactures designed time in an accident? If so then it would not interfere with driver safety.
Yes, and yes.
But the bumper is a damage multiplier; if the impact is big enough to push the bumper, the entire piece will move at once (as they are so rigid) breaking everything that the bumper touches. So what would have normally just been damage to the left front fender, is now damage to the left front fender, the grille, the headlights, and the right front fender.
- Thread starter
- #6
Makes sense. See a lot of the big ass bumpers here in Texas. Think Texas is the capital of the big ass bumper!
I think if it's a decent metal bumper and you manage to push it back you would've been screwed either way without it.
MScruiser
obsessive-compulsive oppositional-defiant wise-ass
Probably, but not necessarily.
(Diggin the new profile pic and grille)
(Diggin the new profile pic and grille)
TEXAS is the capital of BIG ASS anything- yeehawMakes sense. See a lot of the big ass bumpers here in Texas. Think Texas is the capital of the big ass bumper!
MScruiser
obsessive-compulsive oppositional-defiant wise-ass
Last edited:
- Thread starter
- #11
Bigger is not always better...
Where did you get a picture of me feeding my mistress?
Now that's a fupa
With a well designed big bumper, you are not sacrificing any safety. The crumple zones on vehicles are basically the hood, fenders, inner fenders, rad supports and other structural things like that while the pass. compartment is the strongest part of the vehicles structure. The big bumpers on LC's are giving you a larger steel frontal impact area. The factory has a large metal fixed bar at the bumper level which is directly bolted to the frame. The bumper itself is just a flimsy plastic cover with a piece of Styrofoam in it. It doesnt absorb hardly any energy. That is transferred to the front crash beam which then starts pushing rearward on everything else. The big bumper mounts directly to the location the original factory crash beam did.
- Thread starter
- #14
So it spreads the impact energy across the entire front bumper?
For whatever it's worth, what Archtaan said is basically what Bill Burke taught about steel bumpers when I took a weekend class of his. He noted that generally speaking, ARB and similar companies have the R&D budget to "certify" their bumpers as air bag compatible or whatever, but in the end a steel winch bumper that mounts to the truck in the same way as the stock bumper does (to the frame) will not interfere with the operation of the air bag system and will do what it's supposed to without causing undue damage to the vehicle its mounted to.
