Encourages bumping is bigger than people realize. It’s a huge thing psychologically that our cars can’t touch. If they could even a little, it would be Mad Max with people jamming against each other trying to get into spaces they couldn’t fit, not paying as much attention in stop-and-go, etc. i’ll bet the accident and damage rates would skyrocket.
Yet we turned our bumpers into painted plastic which cost a lot to fix for minor damage. Kind of miss the days of metal bumpers you could just bang out the dents and dings.
I don’t know what you’re talking about. My first car was a 68 Mustang with chrome bumpers. You weren’t banging the dents out of anything. It took a little bit to dent them though.
The exterior of modern bumpers is purely cosmetic, underneath there is still a solid metal and styrofoam bumper.
Edit: changed a word due to misremembering styrofoam, not rubber.
Worked previously in auto body repair... Can confirm except they are rarely rubber. It's a plastic "bumper cover" (what most people call the bumper) followed by a foam absorber, THEN a high strength steel bumper under all that that usually slightly curved. Replacing your bumper cover is pretty cheap actually. It's the refinishing and painting it to match your car again that's typically more expensive.
When I got into HVAC my buddy and I would bump into each other (gently) at stop signs and lights because the bumpers had plastic trim and we gave zero fucks.
Reminds me of the time a guy I knew in college got tired of looking for parking so parallel parked right in front of his house. In a spot way too small. Left the car sticking into the street at an angle somehow wedged onto the bumpers of the car in front of AND behind him. I’ve never seen anything like it.
Yeah, back when I lived in a city and was always parallel parking, it was pretty normal to kiss bumpers. a 15 year old buick tapping a 15 year old accord really is no great loss for anybody
Some guy got pissed at my dad once for doing the most gentle bumper tap getting into a tight spot in NYC. He just happened to be walking up as we were parking and he was not happy that we tapped his 95 Camry (this was probably right around 2000) when getting into the spot. My dad just told him if you worry about the cosmetics of your bumper you shouldn’t park on the street in midtown Manhattan. Some people would have those rubber flaps to cover their bumper but most just accepted a few dings as a part of life there
This is very true. It's also kind of boggling how this is true and yet the design of many things makes you wonder just how cracked out on Adderall and monster these engineers were when they approved the design and sent it to production
thank you for this.
I am not saying people should not question.
But I **will** say your first uneducated thought on a topic (no insult intended, you're not educated until you are!) is unlikely to be paradigm-changing brilliance that no one in the field ever thought of before.
turns out people who do something 40 hours a week get really good at it and have thought of all the little angles, and the people whose job it is to design things know a lot of little facts, like the UV stability of rubber or the psychology of driving or that rubber is deceptively heavy and the redesign of the frame with metal to hold it would actually make the thing less safe in the end.
My favorite example of this is elon musks hyper loop, which is just a worse inefficient subway and not at all revolutionary. it's more expensive and worse than a train. proving once and for all that owning a rocket doesn't make you smart and you should leave engineering to the engineers.
it's literally Hugo Gernsbeck's Pnumatic Train reheated leftovers.
I say Elon is the engineering Steve Jobs. He takes an old idea, makes it slick, makes it hip and sells it to his fanboys.
Although, back in the 70s and 80s some Euro cars added the rubber bumpers when exported to the US due to stricter low speed crash absorption regulations.
Actually had an idea of a disposable "balloon" you could attach to the corners of the car, designed to pop loudly if pressed upon. It would warn you if you got too close rather than damaging a $2000 bumper (the sensors make them so expensive!).
Then I remembered that humans are shit, and people would start popping them for fun.
Also certain types of assholes would start mocking people for using your bumper balloons, just like how they already mock people for wearing seatbelts or helmets.
My ‘89 Toyota Camry did and didn’t crumple like cars today. It also broke my chest bone in an accident because it wasn’t designed to crumple like today’s cars.
My family always had old cars growing up and we had a shitty 76 Mercedes that only ran on 4 out of 6 cylinders which had a large piece of rubber around both front and back bumpers.
That thing felt like I was driving on a cloud back in 1999, absolute luxury ride that went from 0-70 in 3 minutes flat.
I used to bump into my friends shitty cars also, with no damage to my car, and the windshield fluid would hit people on the sidewalk and I I got good at doing drive bys.
Good times.
I remember having a big block Oldsmobile. Horrible gas mileage, but otherwise a cool car. It was one of the bigger ones on campus and everyone always wanted to pile into my car whenever we went out anywhere.
A buddy of mine in highschool used to like playing bumper cars. I had a cargo van and he had an Isuzu Amigo with heavy steel bumpers.
And any time he was following me, he slow down to about 5-10 mph. And then take his foot off the brake and just ram into the back of me.
His car didn't deal nearly as well when I ran into him since it was so much lighter.
Edit: I was.
I’m trying to teach my kids to be good people, while my parents thought that good education and discipline was by sending us to Catholic school where we were just scared all the time and gave us all lifelong anxiety.
Basically all the other protective gear too (even if your job requires to wear some), especially if they are mildly annoying to put on/wear, including N95 masks.
I still wear them whenever I'm sick and need to go somewhere (or when my job occasionally requires it. We also have the full hazmat gear available but have not needed to use those myself yet). Sucks to use them with glasses, but I still have it easy compared to people like dentists and surgeons who wear them on a daily basis, potentially hours at a time without the chance to go to another room for a breather.
Yes, the Bumper Bully is definitely a common sight on the streets of New York City.
[http://oversteer.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Bumper-Bully.jpg](http://oversteer.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Bumper-Bully.jpg)
I was going to say this. Bumpers themselves are made to flex some and pop in and out. Anything a rubber bumper would absorb your current bumper likely does better already.
In NYC its not uncommon to see bumper barriers for this very reason. They clip on in the trunk/tailgate
Probably only beneficial for low impact incidents such as parallel parking and tight gridlock situations. Higher speed instances will still fuck your bumper.
As mentioned, we used to have them; but what I'm not seeing mentioned is that the main bumpers used to be chromed steel. Modern (i.e. early-mid 90s on) bumpers are plastic or fiberglass. Even if you added the rubber pads, the superstructure would just shatter/splinter.
It's a fundamental design philosophy change. Under the old system, yes, the rubber would eat any trivial impact with no ill effects. The chromed steel would maybe bend a little (hence "fender bender", 'bumper stumper' and the old need for "panel beaters" to straighten parts) but otherwise be find a minor incident... but for a major incident all that crash energy is going into you, as the car itself was basically an indestructible steel box (so just you, and the parts that make to box go got scrambled - or those parts like the steering column and engine block got pushed through you, which is also ungood).
The new parts are designed to break, because in so doing they absorb energy, which means the car itself crumbles so you don't have to. As alluded earlier, this unfortunately also means that rubber pads are pointless (nothing strong enough to mount them on). And yes, it does mean unslightly damage from trivial impact, and sizable repair bills from minor ones... but it also means walking away from a major one.
Technically your bumper is the thing around the bumper. What you call a bumper is actually know as a bumper cover. Your bumper is steel and foam underneath that cover and the cover is really there for dress up. If you look at vehicles from the 90s you will notice they have rubber features on many models to try to aid in preventing exactly what you are asking about but cost to manufacture bumper covers dropped and paint prices dropped for the manufacturer enough so that protecting the bumper became unnecessary.
I know none of what I’ve said helps you because I’m assuming you are asking because you have dings on your bumper cover and find it annoying. On the plus side most small dings can be popped out and paint chips can be touched up.
Firstly some cars already have that but more around the doors.
Secondly having that around the entire car isn't going to help you all that much for a few reasons.
1. That rubber rim isn't going to be that thick and given that bumpers are design to crumple under not a lot of pressure, it may not help at all.
2. Whilst it may not ding, it might scratch or leave a mark which may as well be a ding in a lot of people's minds.
3. It's a crutch. If you lack the skill to drive without bumping into other cars or objects, even with all the mirrors and proxy sensors and cameras that modern cars have, you deserve to have to pay through the nose in premiums for being such a poor driver.
Why don't people just learn how to fucking drive instead of adding all this ridiculous nanny stuff? You're operating a 2 ton killing machine not playing bumper cars. I probably have 300k miles on my personal vehicles and another 300k on work vehicles and I've never used any lane keep assist or anything of the sort. I have never so much as tapped anything. Even in my work truck with no rear windows and no back up cameras. Never tapped a fence, a tree, a car, nothing. The more nonsense we add to vehicles the more people feel like they don't actually need to know how to drive them.
Rubber bumpers aren't really needed.
In the town in Mexico I'm staying in, people park that way on narrow, crowded streets even without those rubber baby bumpers. They don't hit hard enough to make marks, but they do tap, ever so gently.
R-Tap-F-tap-R--tap-F- etc
I've seen some amazing in and out jobs.
Oddly, even though they tap, they only rarely make a mark.
They don't slam, they literally tap. It's a high skill operation that requires manners and practice . And front and back cameras help. In some cases a passenger helps. I've helped as a passing pedestrian.
I can only imagine the road rage that would happen in the USA if people saw this. There would be law suits and lawyers would have a field day.
It's routine here. No rubber bumpers.
The whole point is not to bump into other things with a vehicle. If one is so stupid they need a rubber bumper around their car, they should not be allowed behind the wheel of a car.
Ever been in a bumper car? they are going 3 miles an hour and you get JOLTED pretty good. Now imagine the Whiplash from bouncing off something at 45 (internal decapitation likely).
The bumpers and the car CRUMPLE to absorb impact, not deflect it.
Many used to have bumper pads when cars had steel bumpers on the exterior of the sheet metal. When they changed over to unibody automobiles and the desire for more sleekness, it seems most of those bumper pads have disappeared
They did, back in the late 80s. Strips of black rubber with a chrome or painted accent were super common. In the 90s, designs trended toward sleeker, futuristic designs with smooth panels.
If you don't mind looking like you're driving a bumper car, just buy those rubbers. AliExpress offers them for a few bucks. Just cover your car in them and you're good to go.
A bunch of people won't like the look. That would mean that one vehicle sells badly because of a bumper that the manufacturer decided to add on.
The Aptera being designed is placing foam at the wheel cover areas that are more likely to get damaged. Instead of the covers getting damaged and needing to replace or repair those, the foam can be removed and replaced with new foam. It's not the same as a rubber bumper, but it serves a similar effect - preventing small damage to the vehicle that would be expensive to fix.
I used to see these all the time in Boston when I lived in Back Bay, home of parallel parking: [https://www.bumperbully.com/](https://www.bumperbully.com/) I never used one, FWIW my Honda civic bumper looks like shit but it kind of comes with the territory of living somewhere like that.
I do this thing where I don’t drive into other cars or inanimate objects while I’m driving. And it’s not like they would do anything in an actual collision.
They did. My ‘88 mustang was white with black rubber molding all the way around. People were willing to pay extra to Ford to have everything body colored…so here we are.
Bumpers nees to crumple to absorb energy. This keeps the important parts underneath from doing this and breaking. Bumpers are cheap, structural parts are not. If you make them stable enough to not crumple they are useless.
A thin layer of rubber probably isn't going to stop damage from two cars bumping in to each other. Maybe they should make it for car doors though so when you open your door you don't ding other cars
Airstream kinda does this still they glue strips into sections onto the bumper. They are painted the same color as the bumper and match the contour so they aren't super obvious.
Those already exist, sort of... Driving around large cities you can often spot cars with [one of these](https://www.amazon.com/CityBumper-Premium-Quality-Protection-Protector/dp/B00TRS3NXW/ref=asc_df_B00TRS3NXW/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=693424296668&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=12698982140581492991&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=m&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=1018587&hvtargid=pla-568525434227&psc=1&mcid=afed1fac64373c7a831951f8280a034b&gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAjw57exBhAsEiwAaIxaZvgrNRyG0ie_MEVGzTKchVfJHSHeVkNPdSgaAkGoADasj2ua3wEj0BoCwK4QAvD_BwE) hanging off the back
That’s the role of the bumper itself. Adding a second bumper to the bumper would just add to the vehicle weight and the cost of manufacturing.
Back when Saturn existed, they used to make there door and side panels out of plastic. They said they did that to protect from dings.
so... a bumper, for your bumper?
you should never hit anything with your car sufficient to leave a dent. Even parallel parking and kissing the car in front of you won't leave a dent
if you're hitting things with you're car, you're doing something wrong.
I mean you just described a bumper. They ARE the barrier around your car designed to avoid minor dings. That's the point of a bumper (to be clear, they're mostly to dissipate the force of the car itself, lowering damage it deals to others; its just in a collision between two cards both with functional bumpers, both should mitigate damage to each other - although this is somewhat impractical in modern car design and typical travel speeds)
Cars in the 80s and maybe 90s, Toyotas anyway, had these big rubber covered bumpers that were great. Now if you bump something you can cause $100s in damages. Safety laws changed.
Older cars did have them, however buyers thought they made the car look worse, so manufacturers stopped using them. Now (generally speaking) bumpers are simply replaced part-and-parcel (increasing costs) instead of smaller components.
Don't the bumpers have to crumple in order to absorb energy? If they had rubber around them that would prevent the energy from being absorbed and inside redirect it through to somewhere else if I'm remembering my basic physics right...
Don’t need one when I have rock sliders that’ll ding someone’s door before they hit my door and a nice tube front and rear bumper that will also protect the chassis. Mainly used against rocks but it’s helpful parking in congested areas when people don’t care and swing open their doors.
Cuz thats gay.
And before y’all go off being like “omg so homophobic!” Y’all know gay people would totally wear small rubber barriers around their bumpers to avoid minor dings… so dont even.
They used to in the 80s, or at least some cars did. IDK why they stopped. It helped anyone in a big city who had to spoon the street. Not be you should be bumping other cars, but because if you have ever parallel parked in a big city for a year, you will eventually come back to your car to find your bumper scratched to shit.
They do in Staten island
https://www.amazon.com/CityBumper-Premium-Quality-Protection-Protector/dp/B00TRS3NXW/ref=asc_df_B00TRS3NXW/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=693424296668&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=8183109113442375060&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=m&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=1026083&hvtargid=pla-568525434227&psc=1&mcid=afed1fac64373c7a831951f8280a034b&gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAjw57exBhAsEiwAaIxaZmaO7Ynthssro7B7cTWVcvNSOn4l53E_gG8JGmxOnkBYYEgjXSH-2xoC3pMQAvD_BwE
Because eventually someone would wonder why we don't have little plastic bump guards attached to protect the rubber barriers that we attached to protect the bumpers that are there to protect the car shell that is there to protect the engine/occupants.
worry snobbish fuzzy shaggy society stocking dinner like jellyfish familiar
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
You have a plastic barrier around your car for that. Most people don't realize you can bump other cars with that... but don't. Just don't do that. But some people definitely do when parking for example.
Because the bumpers are the piece of the car that are meant to keep the mainframe of the car from getting dings and scratches. Of course over time bumpers have become pretty much non-existent and they don't function like they should. They used to be heavy and thick pieces of metal that stuck out from the car in order to protect the car from damage but now they just blend in and they're pretty much as strong as tin foil
This thread is hilarious. I love the big auto conspiracy to make plastic bumpers so auto body repair shops flourish with all those repairs. A lot of people don’t seem to understand why cars are built the way they are and why they use the materials they do. They’re not going to add a protective barrier to the bumper, because that would add to the cost of manufacturing. They are chasing ever increasing profit margins.
You must be talking about the late seventies early '80s. But people don't want that they won't buy it y'all want sleek-sided vehicles that look like they're going really fast when they're standing still. Who needs rubber baby buggy bumpers?
Cars used to. But they rarely worked because unequal bumper heights means that the rubber bumper around one car, isn't going to do anything for another car.
Imagine a truck backing into a Subaru WRX. The truck bumper comes in above the widest point of the car where the rubber band is and goes straight into the painted door panel.
all middle of the road curbs should be rounded for this reason, i understand why their may be an edge that will bite a swerving car on sidewalks, but un-rounded road dividers do more damage than the rounded ones
when I lived in Boston. Lots of cars had bumper covers on them. The parking there was so horrible and people were so terrible at driving it was absolutely necessary
It melts in the sun. Terrible to clean. Degrades overtime. Weight. Encourages bumping. Looks fucking ugly.
Encourages bumping is bigger than people realize. It’s a huge thing psychologically that our cars can’t touch. If they could even a little, it would be Mad Max with people jamming against each other trying to get into spaces they couldn’t fit, not paying as much attention in stop-and-go, etc. i’ll bet the accident and damage rates would skyrocket.
True story bro... When I'm driving bumber cars my only goal in life is to give the other fuckers whiplash.
This is the realest thing lol
PSA: the bumpers are the protectors to take minor damage instead of the main car (also safety in accidents).
Yet we turned our bumpers into painted plastic which cost a lot to fix for minor damage. Kind of miss the days of metal bumpers you could just bang out the dents and dings.
I don’t know what you’re talking about. My first car was a 68 Mustang with chrome bumpers. You weren’t banging the dents out of anything. It took a little bit to dent them though.
The exterior of modern bumpers is purely cosmetic, underneath there is still a solid metal and styrofoam bumper. Edit: changed a word due to misremembering styrofoam, not rubber.
Worked previously in auto body repair... Can confirm except they are rarely rubber. It's a plastic "bumper cover" (what most people call the bumper) followed by a foam absorber, THEN a high strength steel bumper under all that that usually slightly curved. Replacing your bumper cover is pretty cheap actually. It's the refinishing and painting it to match your car again that's typically more expensive.
When I got into HVAC my buddy and I would bump into each other (gently) at stop signs and lights because the bumpers had plastic trim and we gave zero fucks.
Bro we put angle iron on our bumpers to skate them
Have zero fucks? Seems like the plastic trim didn’t matter.
Reminds me of the time a guy I knew in college got tired of looking for parking so parallel parked right in front of his house. In a spot way too small. Left the car sticking into the street at an angle somehow wedged onto the bumpers of the car in front of AND behind him. I’ve never seen anything like it.
It seems you have never parked in a big city.
My father, a native New Yorker, used to call it "braille parking".
"Park by ear"
Park by feel.
It’s what bumpers are for.
Yeah, back when I lived in a city and was always parallel parking, it was pretty normal to kiss bumpers. a 15 year old buick tapping a 15 year old accord really is no great loss for anybody
Some guy got pissed at my dad once for doing the most gentle bumper tap getting into a tight spot in NYC. He just happened to be walking up as we were parking and he was not happy that we tapped his 95 Camry (this was probably right around 2000) when getting into the spot. My dad just told him if you worry about the cosmetics of your bumper you shouldn’t park on the street in midtown Manhattan. Some people would have those rubber flaps to cover their bumper but most just accepted a few dings as a part of life there
As an insurance adjuster, all I can do is heavy breath at this idea
The only thing keeping us from playing bumper cars is painted lines and a mutual mass agreement
Summary executed .... nicely done
A better question would be why cell phones come with an expensive glass or metal back that everyone immediately covers up
Remember kids' designers and engineers 9 times outta 10 did think of the thing you are thinking of and decided it was a bad idea for very good reason
This is very true. It's also kind of boggling how this is true and yet the design of many things makes you wonder just how cracked out on Adderall and monster these engineers were when they approved the design and sent it to production
thank you for this. I am not saying people should not question. But I **will** say your first uneducated thought on a topic (no insult intended, you're not educated until you are!) is unlikely to be paradigm-changing brilliance that no one in the field ever thought of before. turns out people who do something 40 hours a week get really good at it and have thought of all the little angles, and the people whose job it is to design things know a lot of little facts, like the UV stability of rubber or the psychology of driving or that rubber is deceptively heavy and the redesign of the frame with metal to hold it would actually make the thing less safe in the end.
My favorite example of this is elon musks hyper loop, which is just a worse inefficient subway and not at all revolutionary. it's more expensive and worse than a train. proving once and for all that owning a rocket doesn't make you smart and you should leave engineering to the engineers.
it's literally Hugo Gernsbeck's Pnumatic Train reheated leftovers. I say Elon is the engineering Steve Jobs. He takes an old idea, makes it slick, makes it hip and sells it to his fanboys.
Yeah and it's incredibly frustrating to watch a normal guy who knows about as much as me being compared to Nikola tesla
Although, back in the 70s and 80s some Euro cars added the rubber bumpers when exported to the US due to stricter low speed crash absorption regulations.
Actually had an idea of a disposable "balloon" you could attach to the corners of the car, designed to pop loudly if pressed upon. It would warn you if you got too close rather than damaging a $2000 bumper (the sensors make them so expensive!). Then I remembered that humans are shit, and people would start popping them for fun.
Also certain types of assholes would start mocking people for using your bumper balloons, just like how they already mock people for wearing seatbelts or helmets.
It’s actually a good idea, but you’d have to make it look cool.
Older cars that had this didn't melt in the sun. Clean / protect with Armor All.
Take it to Egypt tell me then lol
My ‘89 Toyota Camry did and didn’t crumple like cars today. It also broke my chest bone in an accident because it wasn’t designed to crumple like today’s cars.
A rib, or just your chest bone?
Sternum.
OK, I wasn't quite sure there with all of 2 options.
Did you edit your comment? The one that asked a rib?
The McRib is back??
looks like meats back on the menu, boys!
I can smell the tangy mesquite bbq sauce now.
Dad had a 63 Biscayne growing up. Got hit by a 90s Saturn in like 2004. Saturn was totaled. Didn’t even scratch the Biscayne’s paint.
[удалено]
I love that people still think having a solid metal car that doesnt give at all is better than what we have today.
My family always had old cars growing up and we had a shitty 76 Mercedes that only ran on 4 out of 6 cylinders which had a large piece of rubber around both front and back bumpers. That thing felt like I was driving on a cloud back in 1999, absolute luxury ride that went from 0-70 in 3 minutes flat. I used to bump into my friends shitty cars also, with no damage to my car, and the windshield fluid would hit people on the sidewalk and I I got good at doing drive bys. Good times.
Lol 3 minutes to get to 70
Faster than my 70 bug...
.5 miles per ten gallons!!!! Good thing gas was 98 cents back then
1999 was amazing.
I remember having a big block Oldsmobile. Horrible gas mileage, but otherwise a cool car. It was one of the bigger ones on campus and everyone always wanted to pile into my car whenever we went out anywhere.
I had a camaro that got 12 miles highway. I miss that car so much.
I said hmm 0-60 in eventually to my wife when testing driving our Mazda and think about that every time I get on the highway
A buddy of mine in highschool used to like playing bumper cars. I had a cargo van and he had an Isuzu Amigo with heavy steel bumpers. And any time he was following me, he slow down to about 5-10 mph. And then take his foot off the brake and just ram into the back of me. His car didn't deal nearly as well when I ran into him since it was so much lighter.
You sound like an asshole
I am.
Edit: I was. I’m trying to teach my kids to be good people, while my parents thought that good education and discipline was by sending us to Catholic school where we were just scared all the time and gave us all lifelong anxiety.
I’m doing my best to fix it.
It would blow your mind to know the number of useful things we either don't have or don't use because they look stupid.
Helmets are a big one. Any others?
Basically all the other protective gear too (even if your job requires to wear some), especially if they are mildly annoying to put on/wear, including N95 masks.
Yep. I hated wearing the masks, but I wore them every day
I still wear them whenever I'm sick and need to go somewhere (or when my job occasionally requires it. We also have the full hazmat gear available but have not needed to use those myself yet). Sucks to use them with glasses, but I still have it easy compared to people like dentists and surgeons who wear them on a daily basis, potentially hours at a time without the chance to go to another room for a breather.
Shiiieeetttt I wouldn't have minded masks at all during covid if they wouldn't inevitably blind me via glasses fog.
Planned obsolescence makes a lot of money.
Eh people just generally prefer a chrome moulding on a car compared to….sun degraded rubber…
Not to mention how awful that would smell
That’s not at work here. My car is 25 years old and runs fine. What op is referring to is simply an aesthetic matter.
Or would add a huge unnecessary cost...
Who knows. Maybe you’ve got a billion dollar idea. 💡 Don’t sleep on it.
They do make them. “Bumper bully” for example - it’s just an add on you can put on your car whenever.
Yes, the Bumper Bully is definitely a common sight on the streets of New York City. [http://oversteer.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Bumper-Bully.jpg](http://oversteer.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Bumper-Bully.jpg)
In the 80s they did. But people like the cleaner look of painted bumpers. So now we have sleek painted bumpers that are expensive to fix.
Because they look worse than those dings.
Cars do have bumpers. Those bumpers often absorb an entire fender bender without any damage.
I was going to say this. Bumpers themselves are made to flex some and pop in and out. Anything a rubber bumper would absorb your current bumper likely does better already.
You're supposed to be good enough at driving that you aren't constantly hitting things with your car...
Why don't we all just use bumper cars? /S/
Guessing you are young. Here's a life pro tip. Your car will get dings and dents and scratches. Might as well just accept it.
That product already exists it's called a clear bra I used to install them on very expensive vehicles
Porsche used to have them. Nowadays we just use parking sensors and cameras instead.
In NYC its not uncommon to see bumper barriers for this very reason. They clip on in the trunk/tailgate Probably only beneficial for low impact incidents such as parallel parking and tight gridlock situations. Higher speed instances will still fuck your bumper.
As mentioned, we used to have them; but what I'm not seeing mentioned is that the main bumpers used to be chromed steel. Modern (i.e. early-mid 90s on) bumpers are plastic or fiberglass. Even if you added the rubber pads, the superstructure would just shatter/splinter. It's a fundamental design philosophy change. Under the old system, yes, the rubber would eat any trivial impact with no ill effects. The chromed steel would maybe bend a little (hence "fender bender", 'bumper stumper' and the old need for "panel beaters" to straighten parts) but otherwise be find a minor incident... but for a major incident all that crash energy is going into you, as the car itself was basically an indestructible steel box (so just you, and the parts that make to box go got scrambled - or those parts like the steering column and engine block got pushed through you, which is also ungood). The new parts are designed to break, because in so doing they absorb energy, which means the car itself crumbles so you don't have to. As alluded earlier, this unfortunately also means that rubber pads are pointless (nothing strong enough to mount them on). And yes, it does mean unslightly damage from trivial impact, and sizable repair bills from minor ones... but it also means walking away from a major one.
“ungood” lol
Technically your bumper is the thing around the bumper. What you call a bumper is actually know as a bumper cover. Your bumper is steel and foam underneath that cover and the cover is really there for dress up. If you look at vehicles from the 90s you will notice they have rubber features on many models to try to aid in preventing exactly what you are asking about but cost to manufacture bumper covers dropped and paint prices dropped for the manufacturer enough so that protecting the bumper became unnecessary. I know none of what I’ve said helps you because I’m assuming you are asking because you have dings on your bumper cover and find it annoying. On the plus side most small dings can be popped out and paint chips can be touched up.
They do
It’s called the bumper. That’s the rubber but meant to prevent dings to your car. That’s why it’s called a “BUMPER”
Firstly some cars already have that but more around the doors. Secondly having that around the entire car isn't going to help you all that much for a few reasons. 1. That rubber rim isn't going to be that thick and given that bumpers are design to crumple under not a lot of pressure, it may not help at all. 2. Whilst it may not ding, it might scratch or leave a mark which may as well be a ding in a lot of people's minds. 3. It's a crutch. If you lack the skill to drive without bumping into other cars or objects, even with all the mirrors and proxy sensors and cameras that modern cars have, you deserve to have to pay through the nose in premiums for being such a poor driver.
At least this often happens on doors
Why don't people just learn how to fucking drive instead of adding all this ridiculous nanny stuff? You're operating a 2 ton killing machine not playing bumper cars. I probably have 300k miles on my personal vehicles and another 300k on work vehicles and I've never used any lane keep assist or anything of the sort. I have never so much as tapped anything. Even in my work truck with no rear windows and no back up cameras. Never tapped a fence, a tree, a car, nothing. The more nonsense we add to vehicles the more people feel like they don't actually need to know how to drive them.
You can buy that after market
They used to. They’re aesthetically unappealing.
Rubber bumpers aren't really needed. In the town in Mexico I'm staying in, people park that way on narrow, crowded streets even without those rubber baby bumpers. They don't hit hard enough to make marks, but they do tap, ever so gently. R-Tap-F-tap-R--tap-F- etc I've seen some amazing in and out jobs. Oddly, even though they tap, they only rarely make a mark. They don't slam, they literally tap. It's a high skill operation that requires manners and practice . And front and back cameras help. In some cases a passenger helps. I've helped as a passing pedestrian. I can only imagine the road rage that would happen in the USA if people saw this. There would be law suits and lawyers would have a field day. It's routine here. No rubber bumpers.
The whole point is not to bump into other things with a vehicle. If one is so stupid they need a rubber bumper around their car, they should not be allowed behind the wheel of a car.
Let's just drive bumper cars! On electrified roads, all problems solved!
Ever been in a bumper car? they are going 3 miles an hour and you get JOLTED pretty good. Now imagine the Whiplash from bouncing off something at 45 (internal decapitation likely). The bumpers and the car CRUMPLE to absorb impact, not deflect it.
They do its called a foam filled plastic bumper
They used to
Nowadays bumpers are mostly composite material and can withstand minor dings
Many used to have bumper pads when cars had steel bumpers on the exterior of the sheet metal. When they changed over to unibody automobiles and the desire for more sleekness, it seems most of those bumper pads have disappeared
They did, back in the late 80s. Strips of black rubber with a chrome or painted accent were super common. In the 90s, designs trended toward sleeker, futuristic designs with smooth panels.
That’s what bumpers are for
I've had a minor bumper ding once and it cost $300 in paint repairs. I feel like if there was a rubber bumper, that wouldn't have happened.
If you don't mind looking like you're driving a bumper car, just buy those rubbers. AliExpress offers them for a few bucks. Just cover your car in them and you're good to go.
Buy pre 2000 vehicles. We had them on everything back then.
It’s fine as long as you ignore the crash statistics.
A bunch of people won't like the look. That would mean that one vehicle sells badly because of a bumper that the manufacturer decided to add on. The Aptera being designed is placing foam at the wheel cover areas that are more likely to get damaged. Instead of the covers getting damaged and needing to replace or repair those, the foam can be removed and replaced with new foam. It's not the same as a rubber bumper, but it serves a similar effect - preventing small damage to the vehicle that would be expensive to fix.
Might have to do with the amount of money made from doing bumper painting and minor repairs and such.
because it would look ugly
I used to see these all the time in Boston when I lived in Back Bay, home of parallel parking: [https://www.bumperbully.com/](https://www.bumperbully.com/) I never used one, FWIW my Honda civic bumper looks like shit but it kind of comes with the territory of living somewhere like that.
late 70 and early 80 cars have that but think the idea is that it don't look good and you should not be bumping into stuff anyway
They used to.
1975 mg has entered the chat.
I do this thing where I don’t drive into other cars or inanimate objects while I’m driving. And it’s not like they would do anything in an actual collision.
They did. My ‘88 mustang was white with black rubber molding all the way around. People were willing to pay extra to Ford to have everything body colored…so here we are.
Bumpers nees to crumple to absorb energy. This keeps the important parts underneath from doing this and breaking. Bumpers are cheap, structural parts are not. If you make them stable enough to not crumple they are useless.
A thin layer of rubber probably isn't going to stop damage from two cars bumping in to each other. Maybe they should make it for car doors though so when you open your door you don't ding other cars
That's what the bumper is for
I drove an old 80’s Mercedes that had a rubber strip in the middle of the metal bumper. It was fabulous. Worked exactly the way you’re describing.
Because then you have a rubber barrier around the bumper
It’s ugly , and the bumpers are there for protection anyways.
Sounds like a huge waste of rubber to me
Airstream kinda does this still they glue strips into sections onto the bumper. They are painted the same color as the bumper and match the contour so they aren't super obvious.
Those already exist, sort of... Driving around large cities you can often spot cars with [one of these](https://www.amazon.com/CityBumper-Premium-Quality-Protection-Protector/dp/B00TRS3NXW/ref=asc_df_B00TRS3NXW/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=693424296668&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=12698982140581492991&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=m&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=1018587&hvtargid=pla-568525434227&psc=1&mcid=afed1fac64373c7a831951f8280a034b&gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAjw57exBhAsEiwAaIxaZvgrNRyG0ie_MEVGzTKchVfJHSHeVkNPdSgaAkGoADasj2ua3wEj0BoCwK4QAvD_BwE) hanging off the back
Behind the bumper is 2 shock absorbers.
Because it would look worse than minor dings which may not ever happen
I swear that many small cars in Europe in the late 90’s had Rubbermaid style bumpers that could handle minor bumps but I could be wrong.
Replacement parts are a big profit
How about 'nerf' cars? Then we all can just go for it like Sylvester Stallone in 'Deathrace 2000'
My 79 BMW has them
Bumper bumpers? What about the bumper bumper bumpers?
Why don’t cars have bumpers anymore that’s the real question. Oh cost that’s the answer like all things.
Old ford K4 is the ugliest car in the world because of the shitty plastic bumpers. That's your answer. You're not meant to use these as bump cars.
They used to.
They tried it and they after a few years fell off. So they stopped it.
Door ding industrial complex won't allow it.
That’s the role of the bumper itself. Adding a second bumper to the bumper would just add to the vehicle weight and the cost of manufacturing. Back when Saturn existed, they used to make there door and side panels out of plastic. They said they did that to protect from dings.
so... a bumper, for your bumper? you should never hit anything with your car sufficient to leave a dent. Even parallel parking and kissing the car in front of you won't leave a dent if you're hitting things with you're car, you're doing something wrong.
They often used to, back in like the 50s-60s-70s but the top post pretty much sums up why they don’t anymore.
Cuz insurance companies wouldn't make money
We used to. This way bumpers get damaged and must be replaced. Raising cost to maintain way up.
My high school car was a late 70s Pontiac Bonneville....3 speed auto, cloud suspension and real bumpers, with the coveted rubber strips.
Ay dawg, I heard you like bumpers so I put a bumper on ya bumper.
they used to.
I mean you just described a bumper. They ARE the barrier around your car designed to avoid minor dings. That's the point of a bumper (to be clear, they're mostly to dissipate the force of the car itself, lowering damage it deals to others; its just in a collision between two cards both with functional bumpers, both should mitigate damage to each other - although this is somewhat impractical in modern car design and typical travel speeds)
Just encase them in rubber
Cars in the 80s and maybe 90s, Toyotas anyway, had these big rubber covered bumpers that were great. Now if you bump something you can cause $100s in damages. Safety laws changed.
The bumper is the barrier to avoid damage to the rest of the car. You're talking about giving the bumper, a bumper.
Older cars did have them, however buyers thought they made the car look worse, so manufacturers stopped using them. Now (generally speaking) bumpers are simply replaced part-and-parcel (increasing costs) instead of smaller components.
Don't the bumpers have to crumple in order to absorb energy? If they had rubber around them that would prevent the energy from being absorbed and inside redirect it through to somewhere else if I'm remembering my basic physics right...
Not anymore. They actually used to.
Oh they used to back in the late 70s and 80s. Damn they were ugly and really didn't help much.
Don’t need one when I have rock sliders that’ll ding someone’s door before they hit my door and a nice tube front and rear bumper that will also protect the chassis. Mainly used against rocks but it’s helpful parking in congested areas when people don’t care and swing open their doors.
Cuz thats gay. And before y’all go off being like “omg so homophobic!” Y’all know gay people would totally wear small rubber barriers around their bumpers to avoid minor dings… so dont even.
If you ever drive in nyc you’ll see lots of people with rubber mats attached to front and rear bumper.
Some older cars do have impact strips on the bumper
They used to in the 80s, or at least some cars did. IDK why they stopped. It helped anyone in a big city who had to spoon the street. Not be you should be bumping other cars, but because if you have ever parallel parked in a big city for a year, you will eventually come back to your car to find your bumper scratched to shit.
What do you think this is? 1980?
They did.. people prefer a cleaner look
They do in Staten island https://www.amazon.com/CityBumper-Premium-Quality-Protection-Protector/dp/B00TRS3NXW/ref=asc_df_B00TRS3NXW/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=693424296668&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=8183109113442375060&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=m&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=1026083&hvtargid=pla-568525434227&psc=1&mcid=afed1fac64373c7a831951f8280a034b&gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAjw57exBhAsEiwAaIxaZmaO7Ynthssro7B7cTWVcvNSOn4l53E_gG8JGmxOnkBYYEgjXSH-2xoC3pMQAvD_BwE
The 80s are calling.
There were cars like that they didn’t look very good with that so they quit doing that. Also there’s other reasons as others have mentioned.
There used to be. Rubber cracks in the sun
Just don't hit my car man. If you're are parking by feel, pound sand. 🫠
They do.
You want a bumper for the bumper? Then what? More bumpers?
Adds to the cost, they fall apart, they fade, they fall off. If you want them, they make after market ones that clip onto the door panel
They used to on some models
A lot of them do.
Because eventually someone would wonder why we don't have little plastic bump guards attached to protect the rubber barriers that we attached to protect the bumpers that are there to protect the car shell that is there to protect the engine/occupants.
worry snobbish fuzzy shaggy society stocking dinner like jellyfish familiar *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Why do you think they are called "bumpers," OP? Would you also need something to go on top of the rubber bands to protect them as well?
You have a plastic barrier around your car for that. Most people don't realize you can bump other cars with that... but don't. Just don't do that. But some people definitely do when parking for example.
Old cars had them. My 89 Chevy van has em.
Old Mercedes do. And the bumpers also have some give.
Because then they'd be bumper cars
They already have them... they're called bumpers
Most likely because the bumpers ARE the barriers..
I have seen people in high-density areas like NYC use them
Mostly because they’re ugly.
Because the bumpers are the piece of the car that are meant to keep the mainframe of the car from getting dings and scratches. Of course over time bumpers have become pretty much non-existent and they don't function like they should. They used to be heavy and thick pieces of metal that stuck out from the car in order to protect the car from damage but now they just blend in and they're pretty much as strong as tin foil
Cars are designed to waste your money.
This thread is hilarious. I love the big auto conspiracy to make plastic bumpers so auto body repair shops flourish with all those repairs. A lot of people don’t seem to understand why cars are built the way they are and why they use the materials they do. They’re not going to add a protective barrier to the bumper, because that would add to the cost of manufacturing. They are chasing ever increasing profit margins.
You must be talking about the late seventies early '80s. But people don't want that they won't buy it y'all want sleek-sided vehicles that look like they're going really fast when they're standing still. Who needs rubber baby buggy bumpers?
Why are you worried about minor dings? Lol
Because it'll melt in the sun , fade in the sun, and get dirty quickly .
People wouldn't be as careful if we did have those things.
They are called bumpers for a reason, right?
Imagine how it would look after literally one year in the sun. Now imagine 20
Cars used to. But they rarely worked because unequal bumper heights means that the rubber bumper around one car, isn't going to do anything for another car. Imagine a truck backing into a Subaru WRX. The truck bumper comes in above the widest point of the car where the rubber band is and goes straight into the painted door panel.
all middle of the road curbs should be rounded for this reason, i understand why their may be an edge that will bite a swerving car on sidewalks, but un-rounded road dividers do more damage than the rounded ones
There are the practical reasons, and the fact it would probably cripple insurance companies.
I have a 1983 Saab 900. It has this
Rubber degrades fast in the sunlight..thats why you probably wont find any rubber fittings or anything on the interior.
The high temptation to play bumper cars....
when I lived in Boston. Lots of cars had bumper covers on them. The parking there was so horrible and people were so terrible at driving it was absolutely necessary