Thread: Bull bars...

I have also hit a fair sized roo in the middle of my arb winch bar (at abt 60kmh)...luckily the roo was on the way down so after a thud he went under..result..some fur on the bar and no panel damage at all...bar had paid for itself as far as I am concerned.

Originally Posted by sam_d

I was also thinking about leaving the bar off totally. I know people to hit roos but what is the actual likelihood of that happening in reality in my situation? I don't drive the car every day; it is more for recreation so although I will be driving in rural areas to/from tracks etcs it'll only be every other weekend or so. How many people with bars have ever hit animals and did it really make that much of a difference etc?

In Victoria having a roo or wombat come out in front of is very much a possibility, especially around dusk. I have hit one roo ( well a wallaby actually ) and couple of wombats, and had several near misses. And yes I was looking out and driving for the conditions. The wombats are solid things and proabably a good bash plate underneath offers more protection from them than a bull bar.

Out round Yass it is a very common thing. I see a new dead roo every week and often see cars that have had their frond ends crushed. In Sydney it would not be a concern though. Personnaly I would prefer to have one on a 4wd off road but It would not be a a nessesity.

I would get an ARB steel bar or TJM steel bar, both are available with or without risers or you could buy a S/H one and cut the risers off if your happy with the no bull bar look but after this incedent with your non/recovery point I would be bolting on with HT bolts something you could bolt a winch into so when some one says they will snatch you out you can tell them to sod off lol.

Really, If your going to do any long distance country touring to get to your 4wd locations, you would be best off to fit a bullbar and as far as they wont help at 100kmh, My Ex wife and kids are still alive because of the bullbar on the triton where a Grey jumped out from the side of Monbulk Silvan road at 3pm in traffic and it would have easilly been 5 to 6', it cliped the corner of the ARB bar and was thrown away from the car which did get a bit sideways but was still controlable.

It totaled the bar but didnt touch the Triton, If the bar wasnt there, the Triton would have crumpled around the roo in my opinion and most likly rolled, this was also the opinion of the ambos that happened to be 2 cars back, also traveling at 100kmh.

Mrs Mcrover hit an HQ 1 tonner at between 60 to 80kmh in our old 80 series, broke the tonner in half and yes the chassis got twisted in the 80ser but IMHO without the bar, she would have driven over him instead the bar crumpled flat and pushed the cabin across out of the way and ended up on the tray.

If you want to see dead roo's, drive between seymore and pucka in vic, the ground is covered in dead roo's most of the time, I couldnt imagine driving through there in the carolla at 100kmh but people do.

I would throw that bracket that has been calle a recovery point in the scrap metal bin and by a decent 1 while your out looking for a bar.

While I was getting my car fixed after my d-i-l hit a tree with it, I had a discussion with the panelbeater about bullbars. His take is as follows:-

In the Dubbo area kangaroo strikes account for around two thirds of his work, and the movement of western ones in around here as a result of the drought is why I had to wait six weeks for a panelbeater to do my job.

He said he would not bother with a bullbar on a conventional car, as they do little to protect it, and spread the damage, but would not be without one in a four wheel drive, as they either totally prevent or limit the damage.

In the last year, most of the people I know round here have hit roos in their cars, in many cases causing very major damage. A number of them have also hit roos with their four wheel drives, but you rarely hear about these cases because they all have bullbars, and there was no damage. Surprisingly, in the thirteen years I have lived here I have never hit a roo, although I have been hit by one. But I have hit an emu, which without the bullbar would almost certainly have wrecked the grille and radiator. In over forty-five years driving in outback Australia, I can only remember hitting a roo once, and that was in 1963, up near Prairie in Qld.

Avoid driving close to dawn and dusk if at all possible, beware of green pick on the roadside, drive within your lights and slow down when you spot them. I remember in 1995, I think it was, I drove from Aramac to Barcaldine about dusk - it was a very slow trip (mostly about 30-40kph), and we counted over 500 roos actually on the bitumen; that was only after we realised they were in plague numbers and started counting.

John

We've had plenty of rain here, no shortage of feed.

Today the roos were just standing in the middle of the road sunning themselves!

After your recent demise I replaced my bolts and drilled in a 3rd....I would hate to see during a winched recovery just the winch being recovered

Sam,
If you do more day trips like the one we did, which i suspect you will, you will not be able to avoid driving home to sydney at dusk. There are plenty of tracks which take all day and you come home at night. I strongly suggest you get a steel bullbar. When i shopped around for mine i ended up getting the arb winch bar from town and country at beverly hills. They where far cheaper then the rest and fitting a bullbar is a pretty simple job which would be hard to stuff up.

When i worked in WA i hit heaps of roos, and emu's it didn't matter what time of day it was. But the car always kept going it wasn't ever broken. I did however bend the bullbar a few times back to the guard. Often I was towing a twin axle caravan so couldn't pullup very quickly even though i was only doing 80. One emu went under the car and caravan and hopped up afterwards and walked off seemingly unhurt??

Aaron