Moving back out to my parents' cattle farm and I am looking at getting a bull-bar for the 2010 Camry, for the long trips between the home and town.
Has anyone got one on their Camry that they recommend? I want one that can have long-range driving lights mounted to it. ECB make a steel bar for the Camry, and SmartBar make a bar as well.
I wouldnt mind though a bit more chunky bar that replaces the bumper, the local Holden Commodores and Ford Falcons have full width alloy bars which look the business. So if anyone has a bar that they recommend or know of, that would be great.
Here is the steel ECB bar that can have CB antennas and driving lights mounted to it, but I was after something a bit more substantial:
No.
Most of the time the armadillos would have to stand up real tall to hit a bumper. as for larger animals, most of them have already been eaten. If a bull gets loose o the road and a car hits it, the owner of the bull buys the owner of the car a new one, and donates a few steaks. Most front end damage of this sort is caused by angry wives repeatedly driving over their cheating husbands.
The blue one has a lightweight bar which you see on some Camrys, they are supposed to be very good at absorbing the animal impact. I prefer the steel ones because they are a stronger mount for driving lights on very rough roads.
That makes good sense. The US is a pretty densely populated and roo free country. :lol: We do have our fair share of deer strikes in some areas though... and there are some areas where a town is a long way off.
Cheers, ended up deciding on the Ecb bar as shown at the top of the page in black. Also going to get a pair of Lightforce 170 Strikers to give the Camry some excellent nightvision.
Firstly I know this thread is oooolllddddd but I figured i'd just necro a thread rather than make a new one.
Anyways I've got an 03 camry Altise and i'm too thinking of whipping on a bullbar.
Been from tasmania it's really only the wallabies that cause issues, they may be small but they can still do a lot of damage.
Current bumper I have on the front has cracks in it from previous hits and i've got the plastic lining crap on drivers side held in with shit loads of gaffer tape lol.
Anyways my thoughts are to just replace after market bumper with a proper one and than slap the bullbar on it to protect it more.
Thing is i've never really thought about bullbars so i've got no idea what to get where to get them or where i go to get them installed (I wouldn't trust myself doing it to be quite honest).
I know the standard steel/alloy bullbars add weight to the car and takeaway from the towing capacity and potentially impact fuel usage but i'm not sure how badly it may effect fuel usage.
what do people think of the smartbar thing? How do they actually get installed? Is it basically like installing a standard bumper or what?
I'd also like to be able to mount some of those insanely bright driving lights on it too which is another consideration.
I assume no matter wherever I go for the smartbar thing, alloy or steel bar the cost of buying them would still be in the 700-1000 AUD area yeah?
So I actually called a few places in the United States since I live there and asked them about bull bars for camrys and they were like wtf.... they basically said they only sell to law enforcement and if one gets installed on a sedan, it has to have a re enforced frame on the front ( dodge chargers, crown vic's, chevy impallas, , etc.
I would love to find one that would "look good" on a camry to install some rigid industries light bars on. I don't want it to look goddy and chrome. It needs to look like it really was designed to be mounted on a camry.
Side story.... basically a week after I researched this I saw an un marked patrol car (Camry) the same model year as my car with all hidden lights doing traffic control.... but no bull bar....lol
And while I may not have to deal with free range cattle where I live, I have to deal with deer roaming around and running into cars which is just as bad so there technically is a purpose for this.
Seems like your best bet for getting bull bars here in the States would be to contact an Aussie manufacturer and see if they'd ship to US. Would be bloody expensive, but likely still cheaper than repairing a front-end collision.
Ivan, I'm not sure about recommendations for your choices, hopefully a member close to you can chime in soon.
It would all just be custom work unless Australia has some setups that can be sent and installed. Otherwise it does make since just given how the Camry is built for it to not be able to utilize a bullbar compared to a Crown Victoria. Some shops may laugh it off but assuming you are willing to spend money on it, some of those shops I suspect may be willing to do it. They may hate doing it but at the same time it would be interesting to see.
The main issue though is that the alloy ones aren't going to do much if a wallaby jumps out in front of you doing 80+kph and the steel ones are really heavy and i've read you may have to upgrade the front suspension on a camry for it to work.
On paper what's sounding best for me might be the smartbar, app only ways 25kg (55lbs) but i'm not sure if it fits over the standard bumper like bullbars do or if it's a piece that acts as its own bumper or something.
I mean if those are good enough for state emergency services it must be pretty fucking good but just want more info and maybe there's something else out there i'm not thinking about that someone might eventually post.
Seems like your best bet for getting bull bars here in the States would be to contact an Aussie manufacturer and see if they'd ship to US. Would be bloody expensive, but likely still cheaper than repairing a front-end collision.
Ivan, I'm not sure about recommendations for your choices, hopefully a member close to you can chime in soon.
Yeah hope so. I just want some more info since i'm not really sure about about what to get where to get them installed etc.
Though as mentioned earlier I'm kinda leaning towards the smartbar thing since it looks better and sounds like it can take some big impacts and be fine.
I'm interested to hear if anyone has had any success at attempting this. I'm also curious if anyone has had a go at trying to see if the police push bars would potentially fit on a Camry. I've got a 2001 Camry as my daily and Like a lot of you have mentioned there are a lot of deer roaming about the rural areas of the states. I am looking for a way to protect the front of the vehicle against severe damage due to a deer running out in front of the car. I've had friends hit deer and have their cars get totaled out by the insurance companies and Id like to keep that from happening to myself.
Edit: I didn't realize there was a second page to this thread. After seeing this I realized some of the questions I had, were answered on this page like the police push bar fitment.
I'm interested to hear if anyone has had any success at attempting this. I'm also curious if anyone has had a go at trying to see if the police push bars would potentially fit on a Camry. I've got a 2001 Camry as my daily and Like a lot of you have mentioned there are a lot of deer roaming about the rural areas of the states. I am looking for a way to protect the front of the vehicle against severe damage due to a deer running out in front of the car. I've had friends hit deer and have their cars get totaled out by the insurance companies and Id like to keep that from happening to myself.
Do you know how to weld, have a pipe bender, and know how to choose good metal? It's really all gonna be custom-fit for your vehicle. Metal fabrication.
I cant weld but have friends that can weld and as far as being able to select the correct materials it may be something I need to research before I buy anything. This may be something to consider in the future.
My Camry has already been in one front end incident and I got lucky and only had minor damage to the front end. Replaced both headlights and the hood, re-positioned the radiator brace and was able to re-align the hood latch. Still it was rather inconvenient as the car was down for 2 weeks while I was waiting on parts as well as the cost of the parts wasn't terrible.
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