Testing was performed by driving the cars into the barriers at 3mph (5km/h) and 6mph (10km/h) for each of the front and rear corner and front and rear straight-on scenarios. The reason for the high repair costs includes the extremely tight packaging constraints of modern small cars. There is no room to be left unused, so even minor intrusions on the car's exterior dimensions can cause a large amount of secondary damage. Also, parts like HID headlights and LED tail lights can be expensive in their own rights, costing several orders of magnitude more than their historic counterparts, raising the costs directly as well.
Additional factors include a combination of improperly engineered bumpers causing the small cars to 'submarine' below the barrier used to simulate another car's bumper, causing a great deal more damage than if the bumper had absorbed the impact. Some bumpers, however, simply weren't up to the task and collapsed.
Least expensive to repair was the Ford Focus, which after a full array of front and rear corner impacts plus front and rear straight-on impacts required just $3,031 to repair. Toyota's youth-targeted Scion brand filled in the next two spots with the xB and xD costing $3,697 and $4,135 to repair, respectively. Surprisingly, there doesn't appear to be a clear relationship between initial vehicle price and repair cost, however, as the Hyundai Elantra, which starts at just under $14,000 checked in just $600 cheaper to repair than the VW Rabbit, while the Mazda 3 was just $700 more expensive to repair than the Scion xD despite starting out nearly $1,000 above the Hyundai's MSRP.
Other good performers on the test include the Nissan Sentra, Dodge Caliber, Subaru Impreza, Suzuki SX4 and Saturn Astra, all of which came in below $6,000 in repair costs. The Toyota Prius came in as second-most expensive, just ahead of the Elantra. The three worst-scoring cars - the Rabbit, Prius and Elantra - all suffered more than $4,000 damage in a single test of the four-test suite.
Reader Comments
Thu Sep 4 2008 10:56 PM
the car nerd says
This is BS. My nissan 240 cost $13 k to fix.
Fri Sep 5 2008 8:25 AM
JSH says
I wonder what the barrier looks like? If it is a small diameter pole I would agree, but a flat barrier, no.
My wife and I have been involved in 3 minor fender benders.
The first was in a 87 GMC Jimmy: I hit a light pole in a parking lot at ~ 6-7 mph. I happened to hit the pole offset so the bumper contacted directly over the bumper support. The damage was limited to bumper and support. My brother slide off a snowy road and hit a tree at ~10 mph but the contact was centered between the bumper supports. That resulted in a bumper, grill, hood, radiator and radiator support.
The second was my wife rear ending a eclipse in our 2000 Nissan Frontier. She hit the center of the Eclipse's bumper with the right corner of the Frontier. The Eclipse had no visible damage besides a scuff on the bumper. Our "rugged" truck had - $2600 worth of damage as the "real" steel bumper is only about 4 feet wide and the corners are just plastic and a couple of supports. The damage: bumper, bumper cover, bumper trim, fender, fender flare, headlight assembly, fender and bumper supports.
The third was when I T-boned a Honda Element at ~ 3-5 mph with our Prius. I hit the Element in it's rear door with the right corner of my Prius. The Prius cost ~$750 to replace the bumper cover and foam behind the bumper.
I can't imagine how you could to $4000 damage to a Prius by bumping something at 3 mph unless the object was a small diameter post and took out the HID headlight.
Fri Sep 5 2008 9:44 AM
Gus says
It doesn't matter, the point is that in this STANDARDIZED TEST, which all the companies are aware of, the damages are high for small cars.
In the real world there will always be tons of unpredictable collisions and speeds and circumstances, but that is no way to compare prices.
That said, I've never worried about fender bender ratings, I've only paid attention to the overall collision safety ratings from the various agencies. I'm worried more about what it costs to repair ME than my CAR...
Fri Sep 5 2008 1:21 PM
NoNameDenton says
Glad I own a Dodge Ram and not a small car.
Fri Sep 5 2008 5:29 PM
Gus says
Yeah, I agree. I don't think I'll ever own anything smaller than a Mustang, which I consider a decent sized car.
Sat Sep 6 2008 2:53 AM
Perfect X4 says
WOW, so nice car ! I love it
Leave a Comment
Login or register to leave comments.
Please keep your comments on topic. Your involvement is governed by our Privacy Policy and Terms.