I love the outdoors. The more remote the better. I just love packing my jeep with all the gear (including my wife and child :)) and heading offroad to somewhere unreachable by road or foot.
Recently while driving my jeep through the outback of Australia, I hit a kangaroo. I was only meandering along at the time so I didn't damage the jeep, (and the kangaroo bounded away with little more than a fright) but it really got me thinking about bullbar protection. If I was going any faster, I could have seriously damaged my 4X4 to the extent that I was stuck, waiting for another offroad buff to get me out of trouble.
So I called my mates at All Vehicle Accessories in Melbourne. They told me about these innovative new "plastic bullbars". Having not heard about them before and being a bit bewildered by the chat (I mean, how can plastic protect my jeep?) I decided to do some research. This is what I found out.
Frontal protection products are designed to do 3 things in a collision. They are designed to 1. Protect the passengers in the vehicle. 2. Protect the vehicle in a collision. 3. Pretect the object being struck in a collision. So that was my first point of reference. Which product did a better job in a collision, the bullbar or the smartbar?
Talking about protection generally, I find it strange how many bullbar exponents out there point out that when you are travelling at 150kms/h, no matter what you hit, its going to be fatal to the object and probably the vehicle. Personally I think such arguments are ridiculous as they suggest all collissions are at excessive speeds and dismiss the relative safety performance of the products at lower speeds. But just to make it clear to everyone, when we are comparing these products along safety lines, we are comparing performance at the fatal margin. This means we are comparing safety performance at the point where an impact will kill a pedestrian, or buckle your chassis to the extent that your vehicle is written off.
The two frontal protection devices perform differently as they have been designed to do different things. Bullbars have been designed to be the "unbreakable barrier". They are intended to form a barrier between your vehicle and the collision that nothing can get through. Smartbars on the other hand have been designed, through their hollow polymer construction, to absorb, cushion and decelerate the forces of impact. Ie. To be a "frontal airbag" if you like, albeit for your car. When you look at the independent tests, there really is no escaping it. The fact is that up to the point of fatal impact, smartbars protect your vehicle, your passengers and pedestrians better than bullbars do.
To paint a picture though of how this works, imagine the pain caused if you fell and bumped your head on a metal telephone pole. It would hurt right? Now imagine in the same fall, it was one of those big plastic wheelie bins that you hit and your head impacted in the middle of the bin where it had most give. It would not nearly be so painful. Thats how the smartbars work. The impact that smartbars absorb, is impact that is not transferred to your vehicle, you or your passengers, or the pedestrian you just hit.
Topic 2. Performance - There is no argument that smartbars are significantly lighter than bullbars. This means better performance for your vehicle. To embellish, if you install a smartbar instead of a bullbar, your vehicle will have less tyre wear, less suspension wear and safer handling, just because it is lighter. They also provide better value for money than the alternatives and are more environmentally friendly. Manufacturing smartbars produces less than 1% of the green house gasses which the manufacture of metal bullbars produce. So performance wise, smartbars are more efficient with your car, your wallet and the environment.
Topic 3. Maintenance - Metal rusts. Metal looses its lustre. Metal reflects. A rusting bullbar requires significant work to clean up. A dull bullbar requires significant polishing to make it shine again. And a reflecting bullbar will effect your vision everytime another set of headlights hit it. This is one of the defining features of the smartbar. Maintenance requires a bucket of soapy water, a sponge and a quick wipe down. Thats it. The plastic parts do not rust, they do not require buffing or polishing and they will never reflect light from another source.
This is a simple presentation of the facts which I've found in my research, when looking at viable frontal protection products for my jeep. As always, do your own research and make the best decisions you can. I'm sure if you do do some research and make your decision on the facts rather than someone elses "tuff man" image, the decision won't be that hard at all. - 20897
Recently while driving my jeep through the outback of Australia, I hit a kangaroo. I was only meandering along at the time so I didn't damage the jeep, (and the kangaroo bounded away with little more than a fright) but it really got me thinking about bullbar protection. If I was going any faster, I could have seriously damaged my 4X4 to the extent that I was stuck, waiting for another offroad buff to get me out of trouble.
So I called my mates at All Vehicle Accessories in Melbourne. They told me about these innovative new "plastic bullbars". Having not heard about them before and being a bit bewildered by the chat (I mean, how can plastic protect my jeep?) I decided to do some research. This is what I found out.
Frontal protection products are designed to do 3 things in a collision. They are designed to 1. Protect the passengers in the vehicle. 2. Protect the vehicle in a collision. 3. Pretect the object being struck in a collision. So that was my first point of reference. Which product did a better job in a collision, the bullbar or the smartbar?
Talking about protection generally, I find it strange how many bullbar exponents out there point out that when you are travelling at 150kms/h, no matter what you hit, its going to be fatal to the object and probably the vehicle. Personally I think such arguments are ridiculous as they suggest all collissions are at excessive speeds and dismiss the relative safety performance of the products at lower speeds. But just to make it clear to everyone, when we are comparing these products along safety lines, we are comparing performance at the fatal margin. This means we are comparing safety performance at the point where an impact will kill a pedestrian, or buckle your chassis to the extent that your vehicle is written off.
The two frontal protection devices perform differently as they have been designed to do different things. Bullbars have been designed to be the "unbreakable barrier". They are intended to form a barrier between your vehicle and the collision that nothing can get through. Smartbars on the other hand have been designed, through their hollow polymer construction, to absorb, cushion and decelerate the forces of impact. Ie. To be a "frontal airbag" if you like, albeit for your car. When you look at the independent tests, there really is no escaping it. The fact is that up to the point of fatal impact, smartbars protect your vehicle, your passengers and pedestrians better than bullbars do.
To paint a picture though of how this works, imagine the pain caused if you fell and bumped your head on a metal telephone pole. It would hurt right? Now imagine in the same fall, it was one of those big plastic wheelie bins that you hit and your head impacted in the middle of the bin where it had most give. It would not nearly be so painful. Thats how the smartbars work. The impact that smartbars absorb, is impact that is not transferred to your vehicle, you or your passengers, or the pedestrian you just hit.
Topic 2. Performance - There is no argument that smartbars are significantly lighter than bullbars. This means better performance for your vehicle. To embellish, if you install a smartbar instead of a bullbar, your vehicle will have less tyre wear, less suspension wear and safer handling, just because it is lighter. They also provide better value for money than the alternatives and are more environmentally friendly. Manufacturing smartbars produces less than 1% of the green house gasses which the manufacture of metal bullbars produce. So performance wise, smartbars are more efficient with your car, your wallet and the environment.
Topic 3. Maintenance - Metal rusts. Metal looses its lustre. Metal reflects. A rusting bullbar requires significant work to clean up. A dull bullbar requires significant polishing to make it shine again. And a reflecting bullbar will effect your vision everytime another set of headlights hit it. This is one of the defining features of the smartbar. Maintenance requires a bucket of soapy water, a sponge and a quick wipe down. Thats it. The plastic parts do not rust, they do not require buffing or polishing and they will never reflect light from another source.
This is a simple presentation of the facts which I've found in my research, when looking at viable frontal protection products for my jeep. As always, do your own research and make the best decisions you can. I'm sure if you do do some research and make your decision on the facts rather than someone elses "tuff man" image, the decision won't be that hard at all. - 20897
About the Author:
Damian Papworth is a 4WD buff. It makes sense he turned to All Vehicle Accessories when looking for advice on frontal protection for his Jeep
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