German Car Zone

^^^ Bingo! Exactly.


M

The real problem is that people tend to confuse safety and equipment.
Many people think that a car equipped with an Airbag is necessarily safer than another who has no Airbag.

This is complete nonsense. What counts is the structural deformation of the car, the way it takes the shock and absorb it without excessive stress for the passengers.

EuroNCAP has been an extremely useful think because it made the carmakers realize how important safety was for the consumers. But now, every new car gets its 5 stars because the car is conceived around this very crashtest.

To begin to appreciate the safety, you need to see how the car fares in different crashtests (like, in the US and Euro crashes for instance), you realize many cars are outstanding in one and average in the other... meaning it has been conceived around lab-tests, not real-life crahes...

Mercedes-Benz for instance has a special "investigation-team" who is (in Germany at least) called when a big crash involves an MB, and who goes to see the crash and why it turned-out that way, why the passengers were hurt... Some other carmakers do that, not all of them.

Volvo's safety reputation has been build around ONE golden principle: the car is solid as a rock. It's a tank who barely deforms during the shock... Which in terms of safety is a complete failure, as instead of your car, it is you who deform...

Now, Volvo still has a better than average safety, because it belongs to the focus during the development of the car.

Honda or Toyota are complete jokes in terms of safety. They get their stars, but that's all.

Back in the 80's, I remember AMS buying all the big sedans of the main European and japanese brands and crashing them at the speed of 50km/h against a wall. Of all the cars (Opel Omega, MB W124, BMW e34, Nissan Maxima, Mazda 929, Renault 25, Fiat Croma, Volvo 740GLD and co), only three allowed their passengers to survive. 3, not more.

The worst were the Croma (the dashboard almost was where the head of the driver was, they had to cut the dummy's legs out to get it out of the car, and of course the doors had to be opend with the big cutters) and the Renault 25 (the steering wheel moved more than 35cms and crusehd the driver's head, while the dash just vaporized...).

The others, well... all passengers dead.

The Volvo was the third best: the car barely deformed, but the passengers suffered the main of the sahock leaving them on a rolling chair for the rest of their life.

The second best was the Beemer: the driver barely suffered a minor head commotion.

The best was the mercedes W124. Its passenger cell was the most stable of all cars, but the car absorbed almost all the hit. The driver would come out, look at the disaster that his car has become, and say he has a minor headache... Wheres in the other car, the passenger would all lie dead in their cars...

It is undisputable that MB has the best safety out there. Volvo, and i think Saab in a less obvious way, are also very good at making their cars safe.

Honda or Toyota on the other hand are not considering the safety as a priority and their cars are only average in this regard...

Especially the Toyotas and Lexuses are very often offering extremely poor braking performances, which is a vital safety element that is quite easy to compare from a car to another...

God bless that big nation down under!

There is still hope in this world. All is not lost.

^Lol

Toyota third in Performance category ??? ... just behind Porsche & BMW ...


What a bad joke!

Who were those people included in that survey?
Some desperate housewives / soccer moms, I guess.

"Oh, Cindy ... what a powerful Camry you drive! 180hp ... WOW! The ultimate performance car! I want one!"

I have to read through it again to see exactly who was surveyed because the big question is whether or not these are random people are Consumer Reports subscribers. That makes a huge difference because the latter is truly automobile ignorant about anything outside of reliability and seat comfort.


M

LOL lets not get carried away. I said I had faith...not that it was really the case.

I do recall an Australian study a few years back, and MB did have the highest brand perception out of Auto manufacturers. BMW and Porsche scored highly as well.

"Oh yes, Barbara, oh yes! And it is FWD too! Now I don't know what that really stands for but it sounds really high tech and advanced and sporty!"

ENVIRONMENTALLY FRIENDLY/GREEN
Toyota 48%
Honda 31
Chevrolet 11 <------ WHAT THE.....
Ford 11 <------ WHAT THE.....
GMC 11 <------ WHAT THE.....


GMC = Green? This survey has just lost all credibility. Oh wait, it already did from the very beginning with the Safety BS.

I guess 11% housewives think G in GMC stands for green.