Bumping Minivans Can Be Costly
You can flip, fold and hide a minivan’s third-row seat flat in the floor in order to haul more luggage or groceries.
You can install a table between the second- and third-row seats so the kids can play Go Fish and eat lunch as you travel.
Just don’t bump into a car at low speeds back into a grocery cart in the parking lot or it’ll cost you up to $3,500 to fix the damage — of course, the good news is that’s still less than it would cost if you were in a sedan.
That’s the finding of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety after a series of front- and rear-end bumper crash tests at a mere 3-6 mph to simulate low-speed parking lot run-ins.
The problem, IIHS said, is that federal law only requires that car bumpers withstand 2.5 mph impacts without damage to safety systems, like headlights. But even that low standard doesn’t apply to vans.
To put the repair costs into perspective, a toddler can run at 3 mph and an adult can walk at 6 mph, said IIHS, which represents the nation’s insurance companies.
In the tests, the Chevy Uplander had the most damage in a front-impact test, at $1,631. The Nissan Quest was most expensive when it came to both front corner damage, at $1,995, and rear-impact damage, at $3,549. The Toyota Sienna sustained the worst rear corner damage, costing $1,229 to repair.
In total repair costs from all four tests, the Quest suffered the most, at $8,102, which included having to have the tailgate replaced after a 6 mph impact. The Honda Odyssey fared best, with $5,256 in damages, followed by the Dodge Grand Caravan ($5,495), Sienna ($5,726), Uplander ($5,799) and Kia Sedona ($6,525). The Sienna also had to have its tailgate replaced.
In the tests, vehicles were run into a barrier simulating the height of a car bumper. Though even those minor bumps proved costly, the vans fared better than sedans did in recent IIHS tests because van bumpers are higher and don’t under-ride the object struck, which would cause more damage, IIHS said.
In bumper tests on midsize sedans, Nissan was again the poorest performer. The Maxima sustained $9,051 in damage, worst of the lot, while the Mitsubishi Galant was the best of the group, suffering $4,277 in damage.
Full-size SUVs have yet to be tested.
