Resilence Of The 03+ Rear Bumper

[uumode]

I thought you might like to take some comfort in the resilience of the rear Avensis 03+ bumper.

The other day at night, when it was dark, raining, with droplets on my rear screen and slightly fogged - not exactly the best combination for visibility, I reversed into one of those black painted metal bollards below the height of the rear window, sort of knee height jobs (I didn't see it at all) at about 5mph-8mph - Massive crunching noise (which turned the heads of a few people) and slammed on the brakes as I realised I'd probably hit a bollard. 'Fudge' I thought, with visions of a cracked bumper and a pole like dent in the rear hatch.

Got out, not a dent or crack in sight! When the rain had stopped and water droplets dried off on the paintwork, there was infact some scuffing to the bumper paintwork which I polished out with with T cut.

Had a look at the panel gaps, there were a slight difference on one side, but not enough to be noticable.

There you have it, the bumper completely absorbed the impact without an insurance claim

to the Toyota engineers

[bristolmotorspeedway]

I thought you might like to take some comfort in the resilience of the rear Avensis 03+ bumper.

The other day at night, when it was dark, raining, with droplets on my rear screen and slightly fogged - not exactly the best combination for visibility, I reversed into one of those black painted metal bollards below the height of the rear window, sort of knee height jobs (I didn't see it at all) at about 5mph-8mph - Massive crunching noise (which turned the heads of a few people) and slammed on the brakes as I realised I'd probably hit a bollard. 'Fudge' I thought, with visions of a cracked bumper and a pole like dent in the rear hatch.

Got out, not a dent or crack in sight! When the rain had stopped and water droplets dried off on the paintwork, there was infact some scuffing to the bumper paintwork which I polished out with with T cut.

Had a look at the panel gaps, there were a slight difference on one side, but not enough to be noticable.

There you have it, the bumper completely absorbed the impact without an insurance claim

to the Toyota engineers

Excellent news - I did exactly the same, but probably at 2-3 mph, in my previous Mondeo a couple of years back. Just a slight noise, the result was a big star shaped crack in the top of the bumper. Glad to hear Mr T makes things tougher.

[215 compressor]

I thought you might like to take some comfort in the resilience of the rear Avensis 03+ bumper.

The other day at night, when it was dark, raining, with droplets on my rear screen and slightly fogged - not exactly the best combination for visibility, I reversed into one of those black painted metal bollards below the height of the rear window, sort of knee height jobs (I didn't see it at all) at about 5mph-8mph - Massive crunching noise (which turned the heads of a few people) and slammed on the brakes as I realised I'd probably hit a bollard. 'Fudge' I thought, with visions of a cracked bumper and a pole like dent in the rear hatch.

Got out, not a dent or crack in sight! When the rain had stopped and water droplets dried off on the paintwork, there was infact some scuffing to the bumper paintwork which I polished out with with T cut.

Had a look at the panel gaps, there were a slight difference on one side, but not enough to be noticable.

There you have it, the bumper completely absorbed the impact without an insurance claim

to the Toyota engineers

dont want to dampen your spirits but have you had a good look behind the bumper at the bumper mounting brackets and parts as what usually happens is due to the bumper being plastic like you say it more or less springs back to its original position but leaving behind the damaged brackets or mounting bar behind .especialy when you have heard a loud crunching i suspect damage behind bumper have another look to be sure .hope im wrong :(

[uumode]

dont want to dampen your spirits but have you had a good look behind the bumper at the bumper mounting brackets and parts as what usually happens is due to the bumper being plastic like you say it more or less springs back to its original position but leaving behind the damaged brackets or mounting bar behind .especialy when you have heard a loud crunching i suspect damage behind bumper have another look to be sure .hope im wrong :(

Had another look, but can't really see behind the bumper. I guess one of the brackets is bent a bit as the panel gap is slightly different on one side, but no one would notice anything. Was hoping the loud noise was the acoustics of the plastic bumper going in and out.

Once I was driving my VW Polo along at 30 mph when somebody hit a football over the fence that hit my car body work with a loud thud.... thought it had dented the panels, but was OK, just acoustically very loud.

Car looks superficially normal anyway, hmm...

[215 compressor]

dont want to dampen your spirits but have you had a good look behind the bumper at the bumper mounting brackets and parts as what usually happens is due to the bumper being plastic like you say it more or less springs back to its original position but leaving behind the damaged brackets or mounting bar behind .especialy when you have heard a loud crunching i suspect damage behind bumper have another look to be sure .hope im wrong :(

Had another look, but can't really see behind the bumper. I guess one of the brackets is bent a bit as the panel gap is slightly different on one side, but no one would notice anything. Was hoping the loud noise was the acoustics of the plastic bumper going in and out.

Once I was driving my VW Polo along at 30 mph when somebody hit a football over the fence that hit my car body work with a loud thud.... thought it had dented the panels, but was OK, just acoustically very loud.

Car looks superficially normal anyway, hmm...

good glad to near it