Trivia: The holes in the bumper

• Fahad Ullah


• 9 Dec 2014

Previously, I told you about the arrow in the meter cluster. Today, I am going to tell you about those holes that you see in the bumpers. If you have a car that is not very old, you would have noticed that there is a hole or two in your front bumper covered by plastic panels.

When you take the plastic panels off the bumper, you would notice screw-in anchor points underneath those plastic panels. These anchor points are there so that you can screw a thing called “loading eye bolt” which you can find in your toolbox that came with your vehicle when you got it.

These “loading eyebolts” are used for towing purpose when your vehicle breaks down on you, but interestingly many car gurus say that you should never use them for actually towing your vehicle with another vehicle because the primary purpose of these tow hooks is to only facilitate in towing your vehicle onto a rollback tow truck, the purpose built tow trucks in which the flatbed tilts and you pull your vehicle onto the flatbed. Let me remind you again, they should never be used for towing your vehicle for longer distances or towing it out of ditches

The reason why many experts do not suggest using them to tow your vehicle for longer distances is that these hooks are designed to pull the vehicle only straight ahead. They are not strong enough to sustain sideways force and turns. If you must tow our vehicle, use the designated actual tow hook underneath your bumper.

You must be wondering if the vehicle has a designated tow hook for towing the vehicle then why these fancy holes are there to destroy the look of the bumpers. The reason is most modern vehicles are lower in height and there is a possibility that the bumper of the vehicle might get damaged while towing the vehicle onto the tilted bed of a tow truck if the tow hook under the bumper is used instead of the towing eyebolts.

Now if it ever comes to towing your vehicle onto a towing truck, you will know how to have it executed properly.