Crash tests: old vs new vehicles

BrianD3

To give an idea of how much passive safety in cars has improved in the last 10-15 years, check out this crash test between a Mk2 Golf and a Mk4 Golf. Page is in polish but the pictures say a lot.
http://leszno.edu.pl/~matt5/crash/golf.html

I'm actually surprised at the dramatic difference between the safety of the two cars. I'm just wondering if maybe the old car had some rust in the seams weakening the structure and would have fared slightly better had it been possible to use a "brand new" Golf Mk2. Obviously the new car would still be a lot better though.

I heard that the UK motoring programme 5th gear did a crash test between a 1980s (plastic) Renault Espace and a brand new (metal bodied) one. Apparently it was very dramatic with the old car virtually disintegrating and the new one shrugging off the impact with very little damage and without even triggering the airbag :eek: Anyone see that test or know if there are any pics on the web.

BrianD3

Silvera

Jeez, the MkII is in a bad state alright !

Although, I doubt that rust would have been much of a factor though, MkII Golf's are fairly rust-proof and besides, I'd reckon that DEKRA would have been very careful to choose a rust-free example for the test.

(......makes you think all the same, my father drives a MkII ???)


Have'nt come across any info on the net to date, but when I was living in New Zealand last year I picked up a copy of the booklet 'Used Car Safety Ratings' which compares and lists ratings under the headings -

"How much is your vehicles likely to protect you?" and..
"How badly is your vehicle likley to hurt another driver?"

It was jointly produced by the Land Transport Safety Authority (NZ), Australian Transpot Safety Bureau and several NZ/Oz motoring organisations.
It's aimed as a 'Buyers Guide' and covers passenger vehicles built 1982-2002.

Obviously, it covers a lot of local Oz built cars e.g. Ford Falcon Ute (96-99) , but a good few of the cars covered are similar european models, e.g. VW Golf (95-98) and (99-02) are listed as offering "average" protection under the above two headings.
(Also, others like the 'Holden Barina' which is a re-badged Opel Corsa, are covered).

You may get more info on -
www.ltsa.govt.nz
or www.atsb.gov.au


An Irish/UK version of this booklet would be very useful !

Silvera.

Squirrel

Yea, I saw the one on 5th gear, the driver of the old 1 would have been killed whereas little injury, if any would have occured in the new Espace. It was quite scary, they said if there was 2 old 1s the damage wouldnt have been as bad.

Guy:Incognito

Squirrel wrote:

they said if there was 2 old 1s the damage wouldnt have been as bad.

Just means you have to be carefull when choosing who to crash into so

BrianD3

Silvera wrote:

Have'nt come across any info on the net to date, but when I was living in New Zealand last year I picked up a copy of the booklet 'Used Car Safety Ratings' which compares and lists ratings under the headings -

"How much is your vehicles likely to protect you?" and..
"How badly is your vehicle likley to hurt another driver?"

It was jointly produced by the Land Transport Safety Authority (NZ), Australian Transpot Safety Bureau and several NZ/Oz motoring organisations.
It's aimed as a 'Buyers Guide' and covers passenger vehicles built 1982-2002.

Obviously, it covers a lot of local Oz built cars e.g. Ford Falcon Ute (96-99) , but a good few of the cars covered are similar european models, e.g. VW Golf (95-98) and (99-02) are listed as offering "average" protection under the above two headings.
(Also, others like the 'Holden Barina' which is a re-badged Opel Corsa, are covered).

You may get more info on -
www.ltsa.govt.nz
or www.atsb.gov.au


An Irish/UK version of this booklet would be very useful !

Silvera.

This sounds quite like the info that the Swedish Folksam insurance company publishes on car safety. They don't do crash tests but they do collect data on numbers of people dying/being injured in various types of cars. A "league table" is then published. Obviously, this isn't all that scientific and there are plenty of anomalies (eg some newer cars come out as less safe than older versions of the same car) However cars that you would expect to be safe generally do come out well eg big Saabs and Volvos. Also, unlike EuroNCAP you can compare between different classes of cars. You might find that a Citroen AX is 15% less safe than the average car while a SAAB 9-5 might be 40% more safe than the average car.
http://www.folksam.se/forskning/trafik/sakra_bilar/2003/bilListaEngelsk.htm

BrianD3

BrianD3

Here's another interesting one. VW Beetle, Golf MK4 and Golf Mk2 subjected to a EuroNCAP test. Amazingly, the Beetle did better than the Mk2 in both the head on and side impact. However it wouldn't do the Beetle driver much good as he'd still suffer horrible injuries and would probably die.
http://www.oeamtc.at/netautor/html_seiten/crashtest_kaefer_golf/kaefergolf_index.htm

More of the same type of thing here
http://www.oeamtc.at/netautor/pages/channel/pages/1102081.php

Eg Golf Mk5 vs off roaders, Renault Twingo vs JDM microcar, Renault Megane rear impact.

BrianD3

lomb

the older cars dont seem to have a strongly braced A pillar. id like to see a test between an sclass and a mkiv. i know princess dis s class hit a concrete pillar at 100mph and the front passanger who was wearing his seatbelt survived. both rear seat passangers def would have had they been belted into the car. the passanger compartment wasnt badly damaged considering the impact speed. very very safe car.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/august/31/newsid_2510000/2510615.stm

one can see that although the car is mashed the passanger compartment is still there and the A pillars are undeformed.

http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/9709/05/crash.analysis/

http://www.garageboy.com/fahrt/diana.html

BrianD3

lomb wrote:

the older cars dont seem to have a strongly braced A pillar. id like to see a test between an sclass and a mkiv. i know princess dis s class hit a concrete pillar at 100mph and the front passanger who was wearing his seatbelt survived. both rear seat passangers def would have had they been belted into the car. the passanger compartment wasnt badly damaged considering the impact speed. very very safe car.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/august/31/newsid_2510000/2510615.stm

one can see that although the car is mashed the passanger compartment is still there and the A pillars are undeformed.

I agree that the S-class is a very safe car and there are few cars I'd rather be in in a crash. However the impact speed of the Princess Di car wasn't anywhere near 100 mph, those claims was tabloid sensationalism. The damage to the S-class is consistent with about a 40 mph head on crash into a narrow concrete pillar. The car would have been doing more than 40 mph on impact (maybe 60 mph or so) but because it was spinning/turning part of that speed was sideways movement and the impact was more of a glancing blow.

The thing about big heavy cars like the S-class is that they have a lot of energy to dissipate when they hit something unyielding (like a concrete pillar, big tree etc.) They are designed to withstand this however they're very little safer than a well designed smaller car which has to dissipate less energy. That's why in EuroNCAP tests big cars don't really do any better than small cars eg the BMW 1 series has a higher rating than the new 5 series.

Of course when you crash small light cars and big heavy cars into each other then the big cars do have an advantage as they decelerate less on impact. The 5 series may have a lower NCAP rating than the 1 series but I know which I'd rather be in if they hit each other. In fairness, EuroNCAP do state clearly that you should only compare results for cars in the same class.

There are a few crash tests on the web with S-classes, you might be interested to see them. There's S-class vs Golf Mk3, S-class vs Opel Corsa, S-class vs Smart. In all cases the S-class driver would have walked away without a scratch. The Golf and Corsa drivers would have suffered life threatening injuries. Funny enough, the tiny Smart performed better due to it's extremely strong safety cell.

BrianD3

lomb

BrianD3 wrote:

I agree that the S-class is a very safe car and there are few cars I'd rather be in in a crash. However the impact speed of the Princess Di car wasn't anywhere near 100 mph, those claims was tabloid sensationalism. The damage to the S-class is consistent with about a 40 mph head on crash into a narrow concrete pillar. The car would have been doing more than 40 mph on impact (maybe 60 mph or so) but because it was spinning/turning part of that speed was sideways movement and the impact was more of a glancing blow.

The thing about big heavy cars like the S-class is that they have a lot of energy to dissipate when they hit something unyielding (like a concrete pillar, big tree etc.) They are designed to withstand this however they're very little safer than a well designed smaller car which has to dissipate less energy. That's why in EuroNCAP tests big cars don't really do any better than small cars eg the BMW 1 series has a higher rating than the new 5 series.

Of course when you crash small light cars and big heavy cars into each other then the big cars do have an advantage as they decelerate less on impact. The 5 series may have a lower NCAP rating than the 1 series but I know which I'd rather be in if they hit each other. In fairness, EuroNCAP do state clearly that you should only compare results for cars in the same class.

There are a few crash tests on the web with S-classes, you might be interested to see them. There's S-class vs Golf Mk3, S-class vs Opel Corsa, S-class vs Smart. In all cases the S-class driver would have walked away without a scratch. The Golf and Corsa drivers would have suffered life threatening injuries. Funny enough, the tiny Smart performed better due to it's extremely strong safety cell.

BrianD3

can u provide any links to sclasses vs golfs? thanks

BrianD3

Here you go lomb, there's some S-class crash pics (including S-class vs Golf and Corsa) on this page
http://www.whnet.com/4x4/w140crash.html

Various Mercs vs Smart
http://www.whnet.com/4x4/Smart_crashtest.html

There's also some good pics of S-Class W220 vs Smart somewhere on the web but I can't seen to find them at the moment.

BrianD3

lomb

whats this smart made of solid titanium? incredible...............

BrianD3

I know, the smart is incredibly strong. It crumples the front of an E-class and S-class and you should see what it does to a Fiat Seicento (pics are on the web somewhere)

However this strength comes at a price - high deceleration for the occupants.

BrianD3

Squirrel

lomb wrote:

whats this smart made of solid titanium? incredible...............

An optional extra...

lomb

BrianD3 wrote:

However this strength comes at a price - high deceleration for the occupants.

BrianD3

true, there is zero absorbtion by the structure. still the car is so small it cant afford to deform at all. mind boggling rigidity

titanium must be standard but crumple zones arent on the option list at all

BrianD3

Smart vs Seicento, Seicento is a real mess, Smart looks like it might be able to drive away.
http://www.sicurauto.it/crashtest/speciali/citycar/smart_seicento.php

Renault Twingo sandwiched between 5 series and Passat (low speed impact)
http://www.sicurauto.it/crashtest/speciali/citycar/twingo_passat.php

Peugeot 106 hits Ford Ka in side (again low speed)
http://www.sicurauto.it/crashtest/speciali/citycar/ka_106.php

BrianD3

lomb

seicento isnt a safe car the A pillars are gone. just goes to show fiat dont do safety or reliability or.......... :rolleyes: