Yes..looking for a bull bar..

Well, as I stated before, mine did quite well on a wild pig and a deer=both ran in front of me; pig on a foggy night near Paso robles and deer in the sierras came off of the shoulder!

Of course, the extra weight argument could be applied to wives, dogs, camp showers, roof-top tents, etc.

 

I chose the Body Armor for a few reasons. 1, it was available on a timely basis when others were not. 2, the price was right. 3, I liked the option of the removable bull bar. I helped my daughter put on her SSO low profile bumper - it's a good bumper and about the same quality as the Armor - but the Bull Bar is not removable. SSO customer support seems to be superior to the Body Armor outfit.

 

I’ve never been fond of Bull bars, but if you live in a city like I do, Lost Angeles, you want some kind of front end protection as drivers use your car for a parking guide. On my now retired GMC Envoy I had a decent looking grill guard. Admittedly it would have offered little to no serious protection in an accident, but it did let the Tesla take the ding rather than the Envoy when the Tesla backed up until something stopped it, when parking.The trailer ball provided much the same protection in the rear.
Which leads me to this question. Has someone made a diagram of the various front sensors. The 2021 OR Premium model we just took delivery of has every safety feature available I think. I’m not all that fond of it but my wife is and it’s her daily driver. (She doesn’t like to drive my Camaro as it’s too loud, hard to see out of, and it’s my baby).
Thanks for any advice on sensor locations.

 

Has anyone put a bull bar on a limited bumper? Dodged a deer last night! Very uncomfortable

 

a bullbar would of just amplified your damage if you hit the deer with it.

 

Really? I always assumed the bars were specifically used to lessen the impact of an animal hit (at least where I live). We don't have a-lot cattle where I am but we have tons of deer and wild pigs and its all rural driving. Every other truck has bull bars.

 

Its true, bull bars do nothing to minimize animal impacts. Here in Texas nobody has a bull-bar. It is full front bumpers or nothing.

 

So its for looks then...ah well. I will have to work on my reflexes and get some better head lights

 

Better headlights are always a plus especially when you get old and the reflexes diminish..

 

Isn't that the truth. LOL

 

Have deer where I live in Los Angeles, but had a Bull bar on my now sold GMC Envoy so people would quit using my cars front end as a parking aid. Same for the trailer step in the rear.

 

I've only hit two large animals: a doe in West Virginia (small unlike our western mule deer) in a rental car and a wild pig (250+ lbs). The latter was in my '85 Toyota P/U. The bull bar saved my front end!

We live in an area with elk, a rare moose, both black and grizzly bears and both whitetail and mule deer. Oh, and bighorn sheep (wife saw a herd of 12 at our vets office within city limits yesterday), wolves, as well as cattle. Living here and working as a wildlife biologist all over the east side of the Cascades, I have taken several Defensive Driving classes (mostly to protect us from the "flat landers" and skiers). Did come close to hitting several elk in a dense fog coming over the Cascades on the way back from Portland, OR.

Anyway, situational awareness is the key!

 

Friends don't let friends buy bull bars

 

Bull bars are banned in some countries (don’t agree on the ban) however the below information I got from the UK version of their dmv.

Bull-bars make crumple zones ineffective by transmitting crash energy directly to the body structure, thus causing injuries and death to the occupants
Bull-bars may interfere with airbags from opening during accidents by upsetting the sensors during a crash

Bull-bars are dangerous for pedestrians, cyclists and two wheeler riders. Especially when cars are being designed to reduce the impact of a crash on pedestrians, bull-bars cause serious injuries and death to other road users as they often jut out of a car during a crash

Bull-bars damage chassis of a car during a big accident, as because of its rigidity, the impact is disproportionately distributed, resulting in the crash energy being forced onto the body structure.

 

When I was mounting a bull bar on our Tacoma, noticed that if we hit a deer or something of that size the bull bar would have done nothing to prevent more damage than not. They are not mounted in a solid enough fashion to "stay put" during a deer strike, I guess it was more of a looks thing, looked good, but not real effective.

 

I have no dog in this fight but I'm not buying some of these statements. Maybe I'm confused on what the term Bull Bar is in this context? (metal hoop welded to aftermarket bumper) Said bumper is mounted in same location as factory bumper using same hardware and mounting points?
I've been hit by a deer attempting to jump across road/Jeep, right in the drivers door, left hair in and around door lock. Sure, our deer are not huge but moving at that speed brings physics into play. Anything I can put in front of me to block or slow down objects is a good thing IMO. Again, not looking for a fight but a bull bar causing more damage?? Heck, the sheet metal on my 5th Gen is tin foil thin anyway, can't get much worse if I hit something.

 

There are 2 types of bull bars; the kind like you mentioned welded to an aftermarket bumper, which are very solid, the other kind is a metal tube that is connected to the front end with minimal mounting points and 'tabs' to the stock front end, not very durable in a deer hit, they are the ones that fold into the body/grill and cause the damage. I would much rather do the bull bar/ aftermarket bumper, although we did not on our Tacoma.

 

ah! so different types and different mounting methods. Got it now. thanks

 

Calling BS on all of this for obvious reasons.

 

there’s studies done that prove me right, I literally copied and pasted that from a study.

instead of calling bs based on “obvious reasons” prove my post wrong.

I’m going to go on a whim you’re not going to read any of these links so I’ll make it easy for you.

“The literature reviewed in this study indicates that vehicles fitted with bull bars, particularly those without deformable padding, concentrate crash forces over a smaller area of vulnerable road users during collisions compared to vehicles not fitted with a bull bar. Rigid bull bars, such as those made from steel or aluminum, stiffen the front end of vehicles and interfere with the vital shock absorption systems designed in vehicle fronts. These devices therefore significantly alter the collision dynamics of vehicles, resulting in an increased risk of pedestrian injury and mortality in crashes. This literature review shows that bull bars do indeed increase the severity of injuries to vulnerable road users in the event of a collision and highlights the need for current traffic safety policies to reflect the safety concerns surrounding the use of bull bars.” This was from a study done by the national center for biotechnology information.

This is for bull bars and not complete steel and aluminum bumpers.




http://www.advanceddrivers.com/2017...vehicles-cause-more-danger-than-they-prevent/

https://www.truebil.com/blog/4-reasons-why-bull-bars-should-be-avoided-in-vehicles

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22239149/

 

First I wouldn't copy and paste anything from a UK study!
They wouldn't know a bull bar if it fell in their tea! I'm not being funny, I work with many of them!

I agree that the bull bar offers little protection from impact at speed. Many just put them on for Bling. My wife wants one on her 4Runner, just for looks. If you want protection there are many great options mentioned on here.

Had one on my F250. I center punched a telephone pole and the bull bar didn't help at all.

 

The posts I posted were US and UK studies. The paragraph I copy and pasted was from a study done by a facility in Baltimore.

also nice truck, considered a f250 before I put a deposit down on a taco. Couldn’t justify spending 80K.

 

Thanks. Its been sold and gone for quite a while. Was a great truck.
I can tell you the bull bar did nothing to help the impact of hitting the power pole. IMO its to flimsy to cause any disruption of a vehicles protective abilities in an accident. At least the one on my F250 was. It looked great and did an excellent job of supporting my off road lights. But thats it.

My wife wants a bull bar for her 2021 4 Runner. Issue I'm seeing is most block the sensor for the cruise control radar.

Don

 

I don’t have that problem on my 2020 4Runner. My cruiser control radar works just fine with the bumper I have. Granted probably not what she might be into.

I can’t argue with studies when I haven’t done any of my own. My bumper is pretty beefy though and not that paper thin sheet metal bumper material on the f-250 (no offense). I know the car is only as strong as it’s weakest link when it comes to impact. However my steel bumper would probably cause more damage to someone else’s car than it would to mine. Now my frame might get bent up, my airbag sensors will probably not pick up on the impact, but that steel bumper I would imagine would be like hitting a wall. Again 5-6k pounds moving at even 20mph is equivalent to 1308.567 kN of peak impact force (assuming the crumple of the impact is 6 inches). If it is less impact than the force goes up. I am not a mathematician but surely that kinda weight moving at that speed is a lot. But I am more than likely not driving into a concrete brick wall like they do in testing. I would probably hit another object and the weakest object will lose (someone’s aluminum car would crumple like a soda can as the bumper bulldozes through).

I can imagine my bumper would be more dangerous for other people and more than likely safer for me. However, I have no way of proving that.

I just found this youtube video which is pretty cool:
https://youtu.be/i2foHYCS92w

 

I think everyone might have a different definition of “bullbar”. The ones I post in reference to the are cheapy ones that are in front of that f250 posted. The ones that are held on with 4-6 bolts over the stock bumper.

the one you’re referencing and in that video are full on steel bumpers with “bull bar” hoops.

 

Yes, agree. What is the old quote 'Let us define our terms'?

 

As a scientist trained in analysis of data (MS with high honors, Biology, 1998) and 20+ years of experience in writing scientific papers, I must say that you FAIL to prove your point. Your first quote is a discussion (minutes?) from politicians. (Really?). Your others (one of which is a duplicate) address PEDESTRIAN injuries. Objectively, that's like saying bull bars injure more deer than drivers! Others are newspaper or magazine articles (Trust the media, do we?)

 

Posted links with data. Copied a summarization of said data because I figured the person I was replying to wouldn’t read the links I sent.

the Baltimore has data if you click on the link and look around on it.

thanks though Greg.

 

Pretty cool video. Except the kangaroo test compared a high profile bar-protected truck to an unprotected low slung sedan. I was hoping the comparison would have been to a truck.

 

Let's move on from bull bars, they are hideous. Chrome bull bars are the worst.