I am thinking about fitting an 'A' frame to the front of my 2010 Freelander, has anyone any experience of either the bar or the supplier.
Select 4x4 accessories / Land Rover / Freelander to find the bar.

https://www.vangadgets.co.uk/UK/land-rover...html[/url]

Although dealers still sell them I thought that these steel bars were illegal on modern cars due to the injuries that they cause to pedestrians. Car designers have had to jump through all kinds of hoops to make our vehicles softer, that's why so much of the front of them is made of plastic.

Hi BB

I thought the same myself, but having done some research on the internet it appears that as long as the item has obtained EU Type Approval for the vehicle to which it is being fitted then it is still legal. The web site does say they are legal and are type approved.

They are also very similar to the type of bar I have often seen on brand new Nissan and Mitsubishi type picj up vehicles.

Apparently the criteria is along the lines that the bar must actually be fitted for the purpose of improving vehicle protection. I think what differentiates this type of bar from the old bull bars is that it covers a smaller frontal area of the car and stops at a fairly low height unlike the old style full height full width wrap around Bull Bars. I did look at the rubber type FPS which do go higher but don't include any provision to add front spotlights which I also want to do.

I also had a look around and found that to offer protection to pedestrians the bars have to be very close to the bodywork and the mounts have to allow movement. To me this means that you could end up having the bars pushed in to the bodywork maybe causing damage away from the original point of impact. See http://www.frontalprotectionsystems.eu/

I'd check with your insurance. Anything that might cause more damage or injury has got to be a liability issue.

snowy22255 wrote:

I am thinking about fitting an 'A' frame to the front of my 2010 Freelander, has anyone any experience of either the bar or the supplier.
Select 4x4 accessories / Land Rover / Freelander to find the bar.

https://www.vangadgets.co.uk/UK/land-rover...html[/url]

BossBob wrote:

Although dealers still sell them I thought that these steel bars were illegal on modern cars due to the injuries that they cause to pedestrians. Car designers have had to jump through all kinds of hoops to make our vehicles softer, that's why so much of the front of them is made of plastic.

Agreed, but the OP is talking about the steel version from Cobra.