A Bull Bar that is made for the job

Hi Stephen,

I hit a roo with an ally bar - fortunately it wasn't at speed and the roo was small or it would have had a disaster. Anyway the ally bar went to the scrap dealer and I got an ARB steel bar.

While they make ally nudge bars - there's a reason why ARB dont make ally bull bars; they aren't up to the job.

all the best

Since you mention this, I recently had a similar experience here in Utah, USA! In my case, I hit a rather large deer nearly dead-on while going about the same speed you were.

Fortunately, I too had fitted my vehicle with an after-market steel bumper/bull bar. But as you can see the impact was sufficient that a certain amount of damage still resulted. I'm not sure if the bolts attaching the bumper to the frame (as you can see, one of them sheared off) were not fully tightened, or if it's simply due to the design of the attachment point.

I received the vehicle back from the collision repair shop on Friday, and the total repair cost was nearly US$2500, though thanks to insurance I only had to pay $400.

But indeed, had I not had the additional protection up there, the damages would have been much more serious and expensive! Plus I certainly wouldn't have been able to drive the vehicle the rest of the way home.











You duplicated my experience right down to the bent up plate, lol!

I have hit a couple of Roos in recent years, steel ARB bar with side rails did the job, knocked the Roos down and under the car.

I will add that results are obviously going to be dependent on the size of the animal hit, speed of travel and if the roo is on a downward hop rather than catch him as he rises on the hop which could mean he hits high on the bar and slides across the bonnet.

No doubt luck is involved but a good quality steel bar is far more resilient than a soft ally bar or those plastic ones than bend and give so much the literally fold back into the body work.

So long as no one is hurt Steven and hopefully the poor bloody roo was killed outright, not nice having to deal with an injured animal :(

We recently slipped into a drainage ditch on the left hand side of a track and slid along a rather steep rock wall. Luckily it wasn't the other side because the right hand side was almost vertically DOWN. Yeah! My mistake. Also luckily only at less than 40KPH according to Ozi's log.

The front left corner of the main bar itself took most "bang" out of it and kept the front off the rock wall, protecting the front of the car. The steel rock sliders helped keep the wheels and running gear off the wall also. All four side panels were damaged. All four had to be replaced. The single wheel carrier and all the plastic stuff across the back was destroyed.

$11000+ insurance bill. New front bar (ARB commercial), front guard, rear quarter panel, two doors, read dual bar (that's an upgrade - cheaper than the original plastic stuff and all the mounting hardware).

And most importantly NO MEDICAL issues at all. Never alloy again for us.

Just a bend in the steel bar and lots of side panel work work, but we got home safe and sound.

Phil

PS We got the right hand side buffed to remove the pinstriping from that side so the car looked balanced.

An ever present danger Stephen which is why I enforce a “no travel at night” policy as much as I can. Not withstanding I’ve knocked a couple of roos over the years and had a near miss with a very large Camel near Empress Spring. It was broad daylight and he just popped out of the thick scrub in front of us. Thankfully I was only doing about 45 kph so was able to slam on the brakes as we met his rear end. The end result was we met his southern end dead on (he was heading north) with the bull bar clipping his back legs and pushing them forward forcing him to sit....on the bulbar and my bonnet. After an indeterminate period of time during which men and beast came to terms with the event, said dromedary extracted its heels, stood up and wandered off (with a little bit of a limp). No real damage to the vehicle other than the bonnet had been jammed down so tight, I had to pop the catch with a screw driver and reset it. Bullbar all good and the spring base of the CB areal had a lot of camel hair in it!

Needless to say passenger and driver were glad that beast didn't come over the bonnet as it would have been lights out for all!


Cheers Mick

Glad you got out of the skirmish pretty well unscathed Stephen.
It amazes me why kangaroos want to jump out and read your numberplate for some reason. They do it so often.
But there is another lesson there in your post as far as I am concerned, and that is your speed at 80 kph.
At least at that speed, you have a chance of surviving the force of impact with a lesser amount of damage, and were able to drive home without any injuries.
I never travel more than 80kph out in the outback at night for that reason, and am constantly amazed how many vehicles whiz past at 100kph, seemingly oblivious to any risk of situations like yours.
Like Mick O, I rarely travel at night for that reason, but sometimes it is unavoidable.
You are lucky you didn't lose a spotlight or two, roos don't have much respect for them either.
cheers
Dave

I would NEVER travel without mine. So far it's accounted for 3 roos, 2 goats, a stand of Silky Oak saplings, and about 30 meters of gravel bank with even a scratch.

hi stephen
even though we all think that a bull bar is the greatest invention since sliced bread ??
most of the bars designed these days only stop a roo if your lucky enough for the roo to hit in the right section of it
most of the modern ones all have large spaces between the upright bars where the roo can literally fall straight through with the forces of been hit at speed

I have had more than my fair share of disputes with roo's and emu's and a sheep
the last 2 bars I have bought I went and had extra uprights welded in to stop roos going through and taking out the radiator
you can get by with a smashed light but not a holed or crumpled radiator/aircond or oil cooler/turbo inter cooler
anyone who knows anything about hitting roo's knows that they come out unseen from the bushes like a rocket and quiet often if you see the first one and miss hitting that
murphys law says you will hit the next 2 or3 that are determined follow
it
they can be at any height and no 2 ever hit in the same place or angle
their bodies are very flexible and can fold or twist or deflect one way or the other when hit and go through the spaces that are in the modern bars
the design of the front of vehicles these days with dual head lights and large indicator
lights doesn't help the designers
the only thing that would efficiently help would be weld mesh
but under design rules I don't think that's allowed now
also with the built-in crumple zones a roo bar that is built really strong and capable of having nil visual damage to the bar can actually crumple the chassis further back
this was shown to me by a crash repairer on a rodeo ute that hit a large roo at 110k's
the roo hit on the drivers side of the bar but still wrote it off with the crumpling effect
they checked the vehicle on a chassis aligner machine

so although it is peace of mind to have a bull/roobar when out on country roads its pays to still be cautious
you and others are right when saying 80k's is a better speed and also avoid night driving and do not try and dodge a roo
much safer to hit it as i've seen countless rolled vehicles out where I was farming years ago who all finished up with a death or injuries and a totally wrecked vehicle because they tried to miss the animal

cheers

This is like comparing which bread is better.
I have seen your precious arb steel bar crumble like a pretzel and causing severe damage to the front end after hitting an average sized grey roo......not a big red. Yes it may have been at over 100kmh.
Of course a steel bar will usually save a front end at 80kmh but a well engineered and developed alloy bar will do the same. Don't semis have alloy bullbars ???????
You would think there would be a reason other than weight.

Gday Stephen,
yep, its reassuring to have an ARB steel bar, which is why I have one.

But...
Its added 70kgs to the front end, so stronger springs have gone in.
And to fit the bullbar I removed a lump of aluminium channel that looked to be as strong than the bullbar and was positioned to protect the radiator and coolers.

A mate hit a roo in the Flinders last year at 80kph - he was towing a van so no chance of slowing but he also drives a 120 series Prado. The roo hit just to the left of centre, went under the vehicle and damaged some stuff on the drawbar of his van. But the damage to his standard bumper was not great - he was disappointed - he was hoping there was enough damage for him to get a free bullbar out of insurance, but much to his disgust, they repaired the plastic bumper bar!!

But I've seen a lot of damage to other vehicles from roo strikes. Probably most striking on the Nullabor some years back - we pulled up to camp and the follow morning picked up fuel at Mundrabilla - a new Tarago had rolled that night after a roo strike - had 8 people inside and a number were injured and were flown out at midnight with the help of the flying doctor. Also a small vehicle there which had done huge damage after hitting roo.
Its nice to have piece of mind.

Cheers
Phil

Stephen, out of interest, did your air bags go off? I am paranoid about these things - yep dont like them in the outback at all.