Are replacement body parts unsafe?
That’s a question has not really been addressed. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) crash-tests new cars. Although NHTSA official Kenneth Weinstein agrees that there’s “clearly a potential for diminished safety” with imitation doors in a side impact, his agency’s standards don’t apply to replacement doors. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) also crash-tests new cars. The only replacement part it tested was one imitation hood 13 years ago. Safety testing (crash-testing) of replacement parts–both OEM and non-OEM–is particularly difficult and prohibitively expensive. There are many possible combinations of replacement parts and original cars. Yet some controlled safety study of these parts should be done to ensure that a car will be as crashworthy after a repair as it was before. Three types of parts warrant special scrutiny: Bumpers. When a bumper breaks, as some imitations did even in the Consumers Reports low-speed tests, the car’s safety – and
