pros and cons of a winch bumper

As my friend doing the work has 3 sj'2, hes done all his own winch bumpers, external roll cages etc
all of his pass mot no problem, so does a guy I know locally matt with a jimny, his is extremely done up mot no problem

I check with my insurence and they say it makes no difference, as long as it doesnt increase the value of my jimny Probly decreasing lol any way

X-Eng Simon wrote: I wonder whether "Challenge Wings" - tubular protectors/reinforcement for wings would be considered the same as a Bullbar?

I'd never really considered it - but it's a possibility!

Si

It will depend on how friendly your MOT tester is

I meant more from a legality point of view than MOT. An illegal vehicle which would not pass an IVA test can pass an MOT. The trouble comes if you are in an accident - they will throw the book at you if the vehicle does not comply with construction & use regs regardless of the MOT.

This happened to a chap I know named Nigel Gresham - who got a couple of years in Prison because there were problems with his vehicle which they considered contributed to the death of some of his passengers.

This has made me much more careful about the modifications I make to the vehicle!

Si

The bull bar and frontal protection legislation only applies to post 2007 vehicles or somewhere around that time, others will know the date.

Now this legislation is quite relevant to us all as there are already people on here with Jimnys of that age who would quite like a winch bumper.

Nonetheless, whilst I am confident my Jimny would be ok if I got stopped on the road by Vosa, I would be more nervous than I am at Mot time and they get me anxious, even if I'm sure all is well!

What would be the outcome of a Police investigation and a Coroner's Court if any winch bumped 4x4 hit a pedestrian and killed them, even if driven without fault or blame of the driver?

To my knowledge it's not happened but I wouldn't like to be the driver who finds themselves in this situation!

These worries lead me to consider taking the Jimny off the road and using it for offroad only and buying a tow vehicle and trailor. The tow vehicle would need to be capable of greenlaning and I would probably want a winch on it, so I'd be back to square 1 and may aswell use the Jimny on the road.

This coupled to the fact the tow vehicle would need to be my daily and parking at work is crap when trying to park my Nissan Micra, so how would I park a Disco or similar? I also like my little rally city car!

So, I'm left using my Jimny greenlaning and driving to and from my club site, with that little bit of paranoia about the steelwork on my Jimjam.

Having said this, my Jimny would have been written off several times over on offroad sites without the bumpers and exo cage. So I have to have them on it!

Kirkynut