The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety recently conducted damage tests on the bumpers of luxury cars at three and six miles per hour and found that in many collisions, repair costs skyrocketed up as high as $14,000.
According to the Institute, the four new tests used a barrier designed to mimic the front or back bumper on another vehicle plus front and rear corner impacts run at three miles per hour and the full-width impacts were conducted at six miles per hour.
Even when bumper systems performed adequately to minimize damage in low-speed collisions, the damage still had significant consequences because of the high price of replacement parts. As an example, the IIHS pointed to the Audi A4, which they said only had damage to its bumper cover in one of the tests. However, the cost of the cover alone approached $600, not including the labor to reattach it or the costs associated with painting it. And if those unique looking headlights get bashed in during these low-speed collisions, watch out; they're not cheap, either. The Infiniti G35's headlight runs $847 to replace, and the Lexus ES is even higher, ringing up $1,046 on the claim total. Did we mention those prices don't include the installation charges?
“If an automaker is going to charge this much for a headlight, it ought to do a better job of shielding such an expensive part from damage in a minor bump,” said Joe Nolan, senior vice president for the IIHS, in a release.
Of the 11 luxury cars tested by the IIHS, the Saab 9-3 was the best, sustaining $5,243 in total damage. There were only three cars that sustained less than $6,000 damage, while four would cost more than $10,000 to fix. The Infiniti G35 was the ranked the worst, sustaining nearly $14,000 in damages.
“The Infiniti was a disaster, and even the Saab sustained way too much damage in these low-speed impacts,” continued Nolan. “There shouldn't be much or any damage in collisions at these speeds, especially to expensive and presumably well-made cars. There's nothing luxurious about shelling out thousands of dollars to fix damage from a bump at a speed about like a brisk walk.”
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