Bumper mismatch can wreck your wallet
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Buyers should beware because while the cost of repairs from even minor collisions has jumped in recent years, many people, simultaneously, are opting for higher deductibles on their auto insurance policies in order to keep premiums down.

Deductible will get you
So if a driver carries $1,000 or even $500 deductibles on his policy he could wind up paying almost all of a repair bill from a low-speed crash.

"Without a bumper there is nothing there to protect the expensive sheet metal or other equipment,'' Rader says.

While the federal government at one time required car bumpers to withstand 5-mph impacts without damage to such things as headlights and taillights, that standard was cut to 2.5 mph during the Reagan administration as carmakers pleaded that they needed to go to lighter bumpers to meet fuel economy standards.

A more recent test, conducted by the Insurance Institute in 2004, focused on crash damage resulting from collisions of SUVs with passenger cars with distinct differences in bumper heights.

In the 10-mph test crashes repair costs ran as high as $6,100 for both vehicles.

Collisions between cars at that speed cause less damage because the bumper systems match up in the 16 to 20-inch range and absorb more of the impact. But when an SUV or truck collides with a passenger car, the bumpers rarely align.

"You end up having a crash where the bumpers aren't even involved,'' Rader says. Some 10-mph crashes resulted in damage that disabled one or both vehicles.

"You don't expect such a low-speed crash to make a vehicle un-drivable,'' Rader says.

Worst case: no bumper
Sometimes there will be no bumper damage at all for the SUV -- because there's no bumper. The next time you're sitting behind a Toyota RAV4 at a traffic light, look for the rear bumper. Lean forward and squint all you want -- even clean your glasses if you think it might help. But you won't see one -- at least not one that would protect the vehicle in a crash.

That's because the RAV4, like all sport utility vehicles, pickup trucks and minivans sold in the United States, isn't required by the federal government to have bumpers. While many manufacturers do put bumpers on their trucks and SUVs, there's no guarantee that the bumpers can withstand even the smallest of parking-lot taps without sustaining damage.

10 mph front-into-rear crash tests