Results are in on a new offset crash test of minicars, and the results are not good:
My mom used to drive a Fit, and now I’m glad she sold it.
Hmmm… and these results are surprising? I think not!
From what I saw on TV last night, apparently all the small vehicles designed before the new test was mandated did poorly. It’s not a surprise. Vehicles are designed to meet standards in effect and/or anticipated during their design phase. An old design not meeting a new test is not IMHO a reflection on the manufacturer or on the integrity of the vehicle.
Friends Don’t Let Friends (Or Relatives) Drive Mini-Cars !
Leave them for the Circus Clowns.
They can be made somewhat relatively safer, but will still be no match for large vehicles. You get what you bargain for or gamble on. Feeling lucky ?
CSA
Maybe they could make the minicars safer by doing what they did on Mythbusters the other night: weld a cowcatcher on the front end. They did this on a dump truck and drove it between two lanes of parked cars. The cowcatcher threw the parked cars aside like toys. It was quite impressive.
On second thought, if you did this to a minicar, the minicar would just end up wedged beneath whatever vehicle it hit, with the roof caved in. So maybe not a good idea. :-0
They still did alot better than the late 90’s early 2000’s f 150 truck, Those were death traps.
usatoday30.usatoday.com/money/autos/2001-06-04-iihs-crash.htm
Still like a little more mass then these mini cars provide. In this day and age, other then living in the city, I’ll take a near 40 mpg highway Accord over a 42 mpg highway Fit…any day for that exact reason/
Though I agree technically that these cars were not designed to meet the knew standards, it does show you how far away from being safe they actually are. Intermediate cars would never, universally behave so poorly in the newer crash tests. Maybe worse then before, but like the Camry which failed on offset test, others still passed. So mass and economics play a huge part and everything you do (almost) to make a car safer, very often adds weight…one of the biggest enemies of tiny cars.
Did u notice the tests are MINIMAL offset now? All cars do great in headon crashes. Than they started doing partial offset hits, about 18" of corner got hit and cars did much worse. Now they are doing major offset, or about 6-8" of offset. Basically just scraping off the corner of bumper. The entire impact is being forced onto unsupported fender and the cars are ALL failing. They show the car after and the entire inner frame rail is untouched. No wonder the car fails. The impact forces the tire to smash back into wheel well and pushes it into the passenger footwell
Maybe mount a snow blade on them instead of a cow catcher, then they can do double duty. A lot of accidents are on the corner and not straight on. In fact most of us try and avoid a head on and go for a glancing blow instead.
Awhile back i saw a current model prius with part of the front bumper missing, you could tell that there was a metal bumper that covered the middle of the front end but at each corner near the headlights there was nothing substantial. So the partial offset tests display what happens when that corner takes the hit as opposed to more of a head on crash.
Yeah, might have to go back to real bumpers again instead of formed sheet metal and egg crates.
The results are good if your name is Chevrolet.
IIHS tests will continue to be a slowly moving target. As the auto manufacturers catch up with the now test, IIHS will design another one that the car companies may or may not do well on.
Found a post on Carscoop with video’s of each test, shows you what they are concerned about
In the case of the fit the dummy barely makes contact with the airbag before heading into the dash.
Wow, does this mean I can get a low mileage Fit for pratically nothing on the used car market now?I would love to have a new old VW Beetle if they made em yet,but those things were death traps(Had a Girl Cousin who met Her end in a Beetle) so if I could get a Fit for nothing I would Take it with no qualms(next they will start drop testing vehicles off of 20 story parking garages)just kidding thats how they make things better{remember the Fiasco over the SUVs in the 90’s?) people went around boasting if thier vehicle did marginally better in a crash,better start crash testing small aircraft( why do state troopers have to investigate small plane crashes[ who delegated authority to them over small aircraft?}-Kevin
There are a lot of cars not passing this latest test. The chevy Spark actually did quite well.
This is a pretty new test so lots of cars thought to be safe are failing, it will be interesting to see how the 2015 Fit does, as well as newer generations of the others that have failed.
I really can’t say how bad the VW bugs were. I got T boned in mine. The drivers side was pushed in enough to take up about half of the bucket seat. I didn’t get hurt except I had a sore hip for a week. The girl I was with though got thrown against the door panel and broke her arm. This was before seat belts. So can’t really say if it was good bones or bad bones but I thought the car held together pretty good on the side anyway. Side bags or maybe a cushier door panel would have made the difference.
IIHS tests will continue to be a slowly moving target. As the auto manufacturers catch up with the now test, IIHS will design another one that the car companies may or may not do well on.
Gotta wonder how long before they force car makers into 60mph crash tests(offset, head on, side impact, rear end).
It looks like this new offset front collision will finish the front end at 40 MPH. I guess that the next step in frontal collisions is for IIHS to increase the speed by 5 MPH or so and see how it goes.
You can make anything fail if you try hard enough-Kevin