I have polished steel side bars on mine and there is absolutely no practical use except to practice your polishing skills. LOL:

Van looks much better with them though.

 

How easy is it to get a jack underneath if you have side bars? if you have a flat tyre the van is going to be a lot lower than normal and a lot of people on here don`t trust the standard issue jack, although I have used it without any problems. As a styling feature the side bars don`t appeal to me but neither do rear door spoilers and the rest of the stuff. Just my opinion of course !

 

Well I wouldn't use the standard jack for anything more than wheel changing on the roadside TBH.

 

They do have a practical use depending on their height and protrusion.

They can stop you swiping the side of the van on a post and can stop car doors from dinging your van. Cheaper to replace a sidebar than repaint the side of the van

 

They can stop you swiping the side of the van on a post and can stop car doors from dinging your van.

You would have to be very inventive indeed to think of a situation where sidebars would make the slightest difference in either of those cases.

The side of a T5 curves outward from the sill up, so either the post would have to be very non-upright, or very very short for it to hit a sidebar instead of the side of the van.

And there probably isn't a single car in the world where the door sticks out further at sidebar level than higher up (other than perhaps a large Dinky toy), so the door will ding your bodywork long before it gets anywhere close to the sidebar.

The type of bar which has step cutouts built in can be useful if the van is used for kids or old people, though generally the steps are not low enough down, and don't stick out far enough, to be much use.

 

The side bars are there for looks but can also serve the purpose of protecting the cills. However, it would be a pretty unusual strike such as a 1ft high bollard or very low car to actually make any difference.

I have the matt black ones and what it does do is make the van look lower than it actually is.

 

Theyre for adding more weight. LOL:

On an offroader theyre for protecting the body from grounding and rock strikes, on a purely roadgoing vehicle theyr a vanity item.

 

As far as I'm aware their just for styling,you can adjust how close/far away from the van you want to position them hence how some look different,mine are matt black as not a fan of crome,with regards to jacking I use a mini trolley Jack and a block of wood for the front,rear just jack's up normally as the bars have different fixings at the rear as to the front,have a look at vee dub transporters,they have a good choice of different style bars

 

Purely for styling. Some will hate them I guess.

I really like them.T:

 

Wow a picture I can actually see instead of a small blue box with a question mark in it. Be interesting to hear how you posted it. Might help the Admins who are trying to fix the problem.

Nice looking van T:

 

The picture issues and PB issues are well documented and well known. At the top level the forums owners couldnt care less and wont be doing much about it, unless it challenges the sites profitability.

 

Cheers pal.

I used photobucket in the same way I've always done.
My account still gives me links to share pics. The pics have been on my Photobucket for a while. I'm using a Samsung tablet.
Sorry, I be any more help than that.

 

i upload pics from my desktop no need for PB whatsoever oh and its free T:

 

I have same as Strummer63. Saved my sill on a trip down to Spain. Pulling into the toll booth in France I had to get as close as poss to the one arm bandit due to short a-s- in the navigator seat. Dinked the side bar on the very high kerb. Just pushed me away.

 

Also have chrome bars on mine too.. the guys that fit them didn't do a great job around the plastic panels below... not that I ever look under the van that much haha

[/url]Vw T5 by Stuart, on Flickr[/IMG]

[/url]Vw T5 by Stuart, on Flickr[/IMG]

 

Mine did save my sill the other day, I was un-loading some new patio through my side door the other day and my 5 year old thought he was helping when I turned round and he had dragged one out onto the drive via the side bar top face

 

A lot of vans in Holland have side-bars fitted, I would guess to protect from high kerbs, low bollards, car park furniture etc. If you look at a lot of hire vans, in any country - particularly LWB - you'll see a lot of gouges in sills that a side-bar may have helped prevent.

 

I saw a pic a while back of a T5 that had caught one of the raised platforms in a petrol station, the bar saved the sill. Other than that its just aesthetics.

 

Just passed a shiny and very new T6 caravelle with a novice driver on the A1, complete with a lovely wall corner scar scrape thats ripped the whole rear wheel arch! Almost felt sorry, thats a scrape that says "ive never driven vans before", expensive learning tool using a T6 velle.