I'm Very Conflicted About Nissan No Longer Including Tow Hooks On Some Cars

Similar: I think domestic Japanese Prius come with a pair of wheel chocks? They’re a collapsible metal gizmo, have Toyota part number. The owners manual recommends chocking the wheel diagonally opposite a flat tire.

a lot of these items do border on cargo cult, but dang it, we want ‘em.

Read-my-mind excerpt from your link :

“unforgiveness in automotive design. Modern, painted, useless, expensive-to-repair bumpers are the usual example”

 

My husband's 2016 Versa Note had a space in the trunk foam for a tow hook, but it was empty.

The dealer said that most tow trucks carried tow hooks.

I guess it is a way of saving weight and cost like the no spare tire vehicle.

 

Yeah, do towing people ever use the tow hook? Years ago, my son drove off HCH into a ditch. He had to call a tow truck to pull it out, but they never even asked about the tow hook.

 

Tow hooks.
I don't know if I've ever bought a car without them.

They're probably like spare tires.
If you buy a car without them, and don't subsequently install aftermarket replacements, then the OEM is probably statistically saving lives by NOT installing them.

Trailer Hitch.

Bumper guards.

Done.

 

A bumper for the bumper...

 

Car bumpers are like going to see a film or reviewing the 'tape'
They aren't.

Car 'bumpers' are, in reality, 0-mph crash rated, $1,000 painted facias....

 

Which could make the car more dangerous to others in a collision.

 

$1,000 painted facias or proper bumpers?
...or BOTH?
Many things "can" make a car more dangerous to others in a collision.
20 gallons of gas sloshing around in a tank....
A 232Ah, 5.3kWh Li-Ion battery....
GPS....
Not having a GPS....
Cell phones....

 

Because they trust the equipment they are using with their lives.

They don't easily want to trust something that was almost randomly found in the back of a stricken vehicle.

 

i thought they were just tie downs for the ship. either way, i won't miss them

 

I wouldn't let the tow truck driver use the screw in tow eye (technically not a hook) anyway. They would likely take off the small cover on the bumper and lose it. They don't usually sell the replacement hooks painted, so it would be a real pain to replace.

Then, that dirty tow truck hook and cable, when slack, could scratch and mar the painted bumper cover.

Most all tow truck drivers use the rear tow eye under the car. No cover to lose.

I would also only let a Prius be towed on a flatbed.

 

The brush guards that don't give in a collision, so transfer more energy to the car or person they hit.

Probably also easier to use theirs than get the car's out.

 

I’m not 100% sure, but I think it has a retainer strap.

If the car backed into a ditch, not an option? Maybe nose first is more common though, lol.

 

I don't remember mine having any retainer. But it has been several years since I had it out for use.

When my Prius slid part way off dad's road nose-first (rapid melting conditions where the packed tire tracks remained solid, tires wanted to slide off into unpacked softening slush) next to a major dropoff, an eyelet at the front was the perfect point to pull it back to the track. I put it on the side farthest off-track, so that when sis arrived with the F-250, chained up on all fours and weighted down with 3/4 ton of cattle feed, I hooked up the tow chain and she easily pulled the nose back to the road center. Very quick and easy.

She hadn't seen that sort of tow eyelets on vehicles before. I don't remember such on any prior vehicles in any of the family households either. But after seeing mine, she then knew to look for the same on another vehicle in a similar situation just a year or so later.

 

Apart from our two latest cars, it’s always been some sub carriage welded-on eyelets in the front.

 

The wheel stopper (described previously), one per vehicle, is now part of the tool kit, a dealer-installed option in Japan. The parts catalog shows that Prius cars came with one as standard equipment until November 2005; other Toyota models came with two.

On towing hooks, each one weighs about 0.5 kg. Nissan Group made nearly 5 million passenger vehicles last year. Eliminating the hook from even ten percent of them would save, say, 250 metric tons of metal, plus the costs of production and transportation. For a part that most owners never use, that’s not a trivial savings. As @Leadfoot J. McCoalroller kindly points out, tow operators generally use their own equipment, anyway.

 

The arm of that brush guard, with their ends at their attached at the black verticals, will fold in like they were hinged into the corner of the front bumper. A harder hit might even drive their ends through the AC condenser and the radiator.

 

Yeah.
That's why they call them BRUSH guards instead of F-150 guards.

I don't use them myself but I do have 2 (soon to be 3) vehicles with trailer hitches and they're attached to the frame.
Will they prevent all damage to car not-a-bumpers?

Nope, but they WILL sometimes prevent a $1000+ repair bill from a parking lot "love tap."