Wonder whats happening when these...

[AIR-Quarius]

This might be related to towing...we were exiting a food place the other day and I took a shot of this bumper, which appeared to be bent downward...and I asked Angel -- I wonder what causes that? Should have asked the owner but we had to keep going.
Other wise I have seen lot's of these bent bumpers. Whats your input?

[azflycaster]

Most likely from using the ball on the bumper with too much hitch weight.

[dznf0g]

If you blow up the pic, I think I see some pretty big hickeys in the face of the bumper. Backed into something?

[Bill M.]

My bumper looked a lot like that after a Toyota van hit me in the rear at a stop light at probably less than 5 mph. There is really not a lot of meat in the rear of pickup trucks. My frame was bent too. If it is from hauling that would really be scary.

[Protagonist]

We used to see this a lot back in Oklahoma where I grew up. Bumper-mount hitches don't have a lot of weight capacity, and they're often overloaded. On top of that, the bumper-mounted hitch is usually higher than an under-bumper receiver, so the trailer tongue would be far from level when hitched up.

When you consider that pickups didn't have any requirement to even HAVE a rear bumper back then, they didn't have to meet the same Department of Transportation strength requirements as a passenger car bumper. I haven't checked recently; do pickups require DoT 5mph bumpers now?

[ROBERT CROSS]

Originally Posted by dznf0g

If you blow up the pic, I think I see some pretty big hickeys in the face of the bumper. Backed into something?

Good sized dent in the tailgate....

Yep....looks like the bumper took a hit that prevented a much bigger dent in that tailgate.

Bob