Bullbar or not

I wouldnt be without one, but i travel from Broome to Perth a bit so really need one. I wouldnt wait till an incident happens cause with the newer cars there designed to crumple, and the damage from hitting something decent wont be minor. I had a 120 series and purchased my bar off a memebr here, second hand for $1100. It was the genuine alloy bar, but truth be told they are all steel in the bumper area at the back and just the hoops at the top are stainless or alloy. Believe me, i had something hole my radiator and condensor and it cost $1700 to fix. Imagine adding panel damage to that and new lights etc etc, never mind being stranded. They quickly pay for themsleves when ya aint got one.

I have just had an Ironman protector bar fitted to my new BT50, and so far am happy with it. Originally wanted the steel commercial bar but they couldnt get one for me at the time so went the steel Protector. Cost me $1600 fitted. The steel commercial one would have only been $1300 fitted.

Ebay is your friend here, and so is the forums. Lots of people change the genuine ones to ARB, TJM etc, just for the badge.

I have specifically not fitted one to my Patrol - based on assement of what is under the standard plastic over-bumpers and likelyhood of animal stike as well as risk of increased understeer in a narrow tracked vehicle and excess weight carrying.

I was a little involved in the Prado bullbar cracked guards issue and there is a weakness there in the 120's but I don't think it is servre.

I would not fit if a real case could not be made for it , and if I did it would be a lower weight plastic type bullbar , never steel.

I have always fitted a steel bar to my vehicles for the extra protection.

I wound up the torsion bars, and had a new wheel alignment done on an old nissan to retain the original ride height so that might be a solution with the Prado also.

I have bought 2 bars from e-bay, one new and one second hand and they were both excellent.

Regards
Geoff

Hi Justin,

We are waiting on the delivery of a 150 Series Prado and we are fitting a steel ARB bullbar. We had a steel one on our 80 series and after a couple of roos and an emu were glad that we did. We had one on our Troopy, but never had to rely on it in an incident but after the 80 Series were happy to go with it. We did think about an alloy bullbar fom Toyota for the new Prado but have given it a miss. We wouldn't be without a bullbar - one incdient is enough. Now if they were to make steel windscreens we could see through that would be brilliant. :)

Bruce and Di

I lived in Exmouth from 1967 to 1978 and frequently came to Perth. It was rare to travel 10 or 12 kms without seeing a road kill particularly on the bitumen between Minilya and Yuna turnoff.
I just came back to Perth after a week up to Exmouth and Shark Bay. I was most surprised of the fact that there were so few road-kills. One medium sized cow and one heifer and about 20 roos.
If you drive during the day at a moderate speed (110kmh) and not at night I would not bother with a roo bar. However, if you want to drive like many maniacs one I saw (125 kph dragging a HUGE boat, the speed limit being 100 for a trailer) you may need one.
Drive to conditions and you will be safe.

we havnt been far and we have a ptrol (been doing a bit of exploring yay) but going across from townsville to adelaide there was roos dead and alive. on the upside when we went to perth and speint 4 days roaming (not in a 4wd) we harldy saw any.
i think if your not doing the hard yarns, and not planning on dusk and dawn or alot of night driving then i probally wouldnt to start wiht. I know that plenty of roos are out in the day aswell, but if you were driving a normal car at 100km would you have a bar on that? a 100kg roo wold do more dmamge to a lancer wth or without bars then a big pajeo or prado.
my dad had a bar installed on his toyota twin cab hilux 2wd only becasue he does a fair bit of s.a to vicco runs.

I spend a bit of time in the WA wheat belt and I am surprised how few roos there are relative to NSW and Qld.
If you don't travel much at night or an hour either side of sunup/sundown they are not worth it.
But if you are travelling in those hours, good advice I got given is either go plastic (Smart Bar) or Steel, don't waste your $s with Alloy as plastic and steel are superior and cheaper.

Hi Dustin
Alloy bars look good around town and that's all they are good for. I lived in a remote place of WA for a while and saw the effects of hitting roos, emus, cows, eagles etc, and steel always looked far better. How important are your family compared to spending the money? Look after the kids a bull bar can be replaced/fixed but not the kids if something more serious happens. I'd be finding the money for it.
Cheers

I think you summarised your own answer "one incident..." That's all it takes. I have never heard of anyone in a crash regretting they had the bar on.
In relation to the weight, consider how much weight is already on your front axle, is another 80kg going to make any difference?
There is no guarantee that a bull bar will prevent any damage at all if you hit a roo but I can guarantee without a bull bar you will have some damage.
Even if it makes you just that little bit more confident when a roo jumps in front and prevents you from taking evasive action and ending up on your roof in a ditch.
Tim

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Dustin
Few things to consider. Do you want to be kind to pedestrians? If so, no BB. If you want a level of panel protection against relatively minor impacts (wildlife or other), then get a BB. Can be a place to mount antennas, winches, driving lights etc if need be.

Steel is stronger, more easily repaired and can be painted to match your truck but a well engineered, preferably 'bumper-integrated' alloy BB will do 99% of what you want and be considerably easier on your vehicle's front end (steering, springs, shocks). No matter what , get a quality engineered BB and make sure it is airbag compatible.

Thanks everyone for your replies, much appreciated.

My 100 series had side scrub bars, rock sliders, bull bar, winch etc but I no longer feel the need to drive through any extreme conditions any more. Touring and sight seeing is more what I like to do with the family now.

I no longer feel the need for a winch but always carry a full compliment of recovery gear just in case - which usually ends up being used to recover someone else who doesn't have it !

I have fully comprehensive insurance so I am still undecided... cheers.

Poor ol RooBar seems to have lost its way.

The whole point of fitting one originally was to minimise vehicle damage so as to be able to continue the journey ... either to the next town for repairs .... or the final destination.

Now that they are built for approach angles and pedestrian friendliness ... the shape and closeness to the vehicle panels .... is such that IMHO ..... they are hardly worth the dollars to fit as protection from roo strikes.

Aluminium bars are fine .... if you get one built to be a roobar - rather than an off the shelf, shopping trolley deflector.

As well as the reduced weight - Akuminium has a bit of spring in it ... and doesnt shock the vehicle as much as a steel bar does on impact. The plastic ones are even better in that regard .... just make sure they are mounted with enough clearance for movement.

If you need to ask whether you should have one .... chances are you dont really need it .... A beefed up nudge bar might be adequate tho ???

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Insurance is fine, but consider the fact that if your car was off the road for any extended period how much inconvenience it might cause you? If your insurance is such that provides a car to use etc then perhaps in your circumstances you might decide that it's worth taking the risk.

We've always had 4x4's and always had roo bars, so the last time we brought a 4x4 (Hilux) the first thing that went on it was a steel roo bar. Glad it did because I hit a big one about 2km from home, but yeah it forced the roo bar towards the car and made a tiny indent (from the spottie mounts sticking out), bad mounting design mainly for how it was bolted on!
But now we've got a couple of standard cheap cars and damaging the car through a big roo hit isn't as big a concern (just buy another cheap car in the worst case scenario). I mainly drive during the day anyway. Hubby does drive the 300km to Perth regularly at night, but he knows that roos are more likely to appear near home, it just means keeping a better eye out compared to say driving a cruiser where you know you have a bull bar and a big car and you know it's not an issue if you don't slow down in time. But in saying that a regular medium sized car can slow down a lot quicker than the cruiser as well! I've got to say though if I had a fourby and particularly a new one I would probably lean towards some sort of bull bar, even if it's just an alloy one at least it would minimise the damage in some way.

Above it was said that aluminium has more spring in it compared to steel and stresses the car less. My first thought was that steel would have more give or flex and aluminium being a more brittle material (ie breaks rather than bends) would absorb less impact compared to steel before breaking. But I understand that it must have meant that the aluminium is weaker and will break rather than that stress being transferred through it into your car.

I can certainly understand about how big the expense is (pricing for those alloy nudge bars is ridiculous!) but quite often paying more now (in regards to anything) means not paying a lot more later.

Having hit two live roos (and a couple of goats) on my various travels with nary a scratch on the '40' - I'm a firm believer in a good steel bullbar.

Ironically, the roo that caused the most impact was a dead one I couldn't avoid - narrow causeway, oncoming caravan, dead roo on the cusp of the causeway with a a steep drop off to the left and a vehicle close behind me - only option was to run over the roo.

Roo poo and blood & bone everywhere under the vehicle - managed to toss the dead roo into the bull-bar of the vehicle behind me .... by the time we'd finished I had bits of roo all over the underside of my truck and left poo & blood all over the windscreen of the 80 series behind me...

This thing about if you dont drive at night, you dont need a bull bar is not correct. Driving in late afternoon or early is the morning are the worst time for a animal strike.. Most travellers have for some reason including myself many times, have arrived at their end of day destination late, so you have no option but to travel in the late afternoon. Long shadows are the deadliest time!! There would be nothing worse than a disabled vehicle on the side of the road with a few hungry kids!!!
A real bar is a steel bar!!

Michael

Hi Dustin,

I personally wouldn't drive in the country without a bullbar. I know many people say that animal strikes are few and far between (Ive been unfortunately having around 1 a month) but the time you do hit one it could end up causing an accident/ injury or worse.

I like the Tuff bullbars cause you can specify extra space between the grill and the bar. This allows more space for lights but also adds strength.

I always look for a bar that pushes the animal forward away from the bonnet The ones that allow animals (pedestrians) to roll onto the bonnet are pathetic.

Cheers Wilko

I would get one. The point is not to stop damage but to get you home in the case of an animal strike.

Here is a link to pradopoint.com (very good prado information) where a guy hit a roo at 100ks with a sovereign alloy bar. Looks like they drove home no problems. Without the bar... who knows. The ARB steel bars seem popular with the pradopoint people.

http://www.pradopoint.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=9355

D