Will grab a pic as soon as I get a chance but I wanna say it was in this area. Maybe there was a shortage of whatever button snaps they use to hold them on. Probably take it to the dealer and show them to see what they say.
It looks to me like they used it to hold the panel when they installed the fastener. The worker probably just forgot to take it off.Well no time like the present. Plus the truck is pretty easy to slide under. Here it is, as best I could get from the garage floor.
Tend to agree. Still, kinda unnerving and funny at the same time.
yes, old cars were built with strong frames while new cars are designed to deform to protect the occupants. this was news 30 years ago, and is a major reason that death rates in vehicles declined for decades (until recently, when increased speeds and distracted driving finally exceeded the ability to engineer safety in the face of human stupidity).
The two cars mentioned were both the same year and both unibody with 5mph impact bumpers...
What's your point? If one of the cars rolled and didn't deform at all, it sounds like it was a crap design for occupant safety. Anecdotally some people will walk away from crashes in unsafe cars, but a lot of people who would have survived in a safer design, won't. I don't see something like that and think "wow, what a great strong car", I think "wow, what a death trap". 45 years ago was well after engineers knew that crumple zones improved safety (they debuted in production cars in the 50s) but was still early enough that some manufacturers were still fighting about whether safety was something desirable in a car and nobody had great methods for designing a vehicle for occupant safety. (Hell, it was only 8 years after seat belts moved from optional extra to federal requirement.) Back in '76 cars sucked (sorry, old guys who still think that giant piece of american steel was the best thing ever) and crash survivability was just starting to be a thing. Some cars were better, some were worse, but there was nowhere near the level of analysis that there is today and no good way to retrospectively compare vehicles using modern safety standards. Fun fact: the modern crash dummy was invented 45 years ago; it took a few years for manufacturers to get shamed/coerced/marketing'd into making cars that wouldn't kill the dummy. (We're still working on pickups that won't maim the dummy!)
My point was well made to the sentient.
...which were crap compared to current standards. And irrelevant, as it's a minimum standard, and some cars are designed to exceed the minimum standard. Or do you really believe that every new car on the road today behaves exactly the same because it complies with the same minimum standard?
What do steering columns have to do with crumple zones? I mean, it's good that modern steering columns are no longer crushing/impaling people, but it's also (in my opinion) beneficial for people to not be killed by other parts of the car. I'm in favor of front windshields collapsing under impact and seatbelts and a zillion other changes we've seen over the years--I don't see a reason to just pick one and decide it's enough.
Yeah, ok. I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. You don't know when crumple zones were invented, or you just don't believe in them? Whatever, really doesn't matter. The science is pretty clear that occupant safety is improved when the car absorbs impacts away from the passenger cabin. Yeah, it means small crashes result in more damage as a trade off for fewer people dying in big crashes. The next big changes will probably be driven by reducing how many people get killed when cars hit them, and you'll probably be losing your shit over what that does to the design of the front end and recounting amusing stories of the good old days when a guy could run a model A over a dozen kids without even slowing down.
