Crumple zones’ shock cover-up

The way modern cars are designed means they could hide serious accident damage

Auto Express Car Reviews

By Julie Sinclair

29th July 2007

That’s because the materials now used to build them are intended to bounce back into shape after an impact – and this can conceal the true effects of a collision. As a result, owners could be driving round in potentially unsafe vehicles desperately in need of a serious repair.

This is the finding of an investigation by our German sister magazine Auto Bild. It used a specialist laser device to check the structural integrity of a car which had been in an accident – and found serious defects hiding behind barely scratched bodywork.
The VW Golf Plus in our pictures was hit in the rear by a MkI Focus. While the Ford was clearly damaged, the brand new VW appeared to have survived with only minor dents in its C-pillars. But the machine showed a substantially buckled frame, which could cost around £5,000 to fix – or even write off the vehicle!

Auto Bild’s experts blamed the problem on the fact that cars must now have very large crumple zones in order to meet modern pedestrian protection safety standards.

They added: “Expanding the crumple zones means the area of collision and the actual deformation can now be very far apart.” As a result, visual inspections of accident damage could amount to guesswork in modern cars.

“Even an experienced mechanic would not be able to tell exactly how badly this vehicle is damaged. The only way to be sure is with this specialist kit. But the trouble is, due to its cost, very few garages have it.”

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