28HopUp

This is for those who have been involved in a serious accident with their Stang, and for those who have an opinion on what I'm about to ask.

I have a 2006 Mustang coupe that is a year-round DD. In this part of the country (near Philly), snow is a possibility. With much experience driving Stangs in the snow, I know that good tires and added weight are needed to get around in the white stuff. As such, I have nine 33 pound cinder blocks on the floor of my trunk.

Coming home in my 2006 coupe last night, I avoided a guy who crossed the yellow line doing about 80mph. It’s wasn’t all that close, but it got me thinking. I have those nine cinder blocks in the trunk for winter weight, and the coupe features fold-down rear seats. Can you guess where I’m going with this? If I get into a serious accident, I don’t want nine 33 pound cinder blocks flying into the back of my head. Currently, I’ve got a 2x4 between the wheelwells (roughly 4’ long) that is behind the metal framing to serve as a blocker. At a minimum, I think I need to increase that to a 2x10. Is that enough protection in your opinion? If not, I’d like to hear your ideas or recommendations. Whatever I install, I need it to be removable so I can use the fold down seats if needed.

If anyone was in a serious accident, did the contents from your trunk knock down the rear seats and enter the cabin?

TIA!

Bill Jr.
28HopUp

Brute03

this sort of reminds me of the episode of Myth Busters where they were testing the "tissue box on the rear shelf" myth

i imagine that it would be easy for almost 300 lbs of blocks to collapse the rear seat in a serious collision

xbone

Use sandbags instead.

afterburner

Go to sandbags. A local kid got killed not from the crash itself but the bowling ball in the back hatch that crushed his skull.

06stangGT

+1 on the sandbags. I got rear ended when i first got the car but it wasnt serious enough for anything to go through the seats. Those seats are hard to pull down if you dont pull the actual cord, but i can imagine that something with that much weight and add the velocity of impact...if they want through the seats, there comin...haha

kenthicken

Physics don't lie - several hundred pounds of ANYTHING is going to fly around in an accident. I wouldn't depend on the latch in the rear seats to hold anything back. Think of it in these terms: if you could sit down in your trunk, and kick as hard as you can on the rear seat backs, do you think you could kick one (or both) down? You probably could anyway, but if not, do you think they could resist 10, 20, 30 or 50 times the force? Probably not. After they shoot through the seat backs, the next stop is the front seats.

About the only way you could help prevent something like this, I think, is to drill a hole on both inner trunk / inner fender supports, and put eye bolts in. Then, if you can find this, get a steel mesh net, and secure to the eye bolts. Inside the steel mesh net, you could put sandbags / bags of concrete. In a rear end collision, maybe this setup would hold the bags in the trunk area. Just my 2 cents...

Caution

It wouldn't matter of you use sandbags, or blocks... weight is weight and 300 hundred pounds of it with enough force will take the seats down no problem. I like the net idea stated above... I think that the net will I slow it down making the impactless likly to come threw

xbone

Park thestang and get a Subaru for winter.

bfoster01

Life is a risk. Don't sweat it.