Luxury Cars Lag On New Crash Tests
MIAMI (CBSMiami) - High-priced luxurious cars are beautiful to look at but that beauty may be only skin deep when it comes to driver and passenger safety.
A new round of frontal crash tests by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety found that some of these cars may cost you an arm or a leg, literally.
The new test is designed to replicate what happens when a car strikes another car or a fixed object like a tree or utility pole. The test strikes 25 percent of a car's front end into a five-foot rigid barrier at 40 miles per hour.
Of the 11 cars tested, only the Acura TL, Volvo S60 and Infiniti G earned good or acceptable ratings from the institute, which is funded by insurers.
Four cars — the Acura TSX, BMW 3 Series, Lincoln MKZ and Volkswagen CC — earned marginal ratings. Four others — the Mercedes C-Class, Lexus IS 250, Audi A4 and Lexus ES 350 — earned poor ratings. Marginal or poor ratings indicate the cars wouldn't protect occupants very well in a real-world crash.
The institute said the new test indicates that side air bags — which are designed for direct impact, T-bone crashes but not for off-center, frontal ones — may not go off in time or extend far enough to protect occupants. In three cars — the BMW, Mercedes and Volkswagen — the seat belts spooled out too much after the crash, causing the crash-test dummies to strike hard surfaces.
Mercedes said it didn't agree with its ranking and pointed out that the C-Class is listed as one of the institute's top safety picks. Mercedes said the crash test mimics an unusually severe and uncommon scenario.
"As a leader in automotive safety, we have full confidence in the protection that the C-Class affords its occupants — and less confidence in any test that doesn't reflect that," Mercedes said in a statement.
Toyota Motor Co., which owns the Lexus brand, accepted the results."With this new test, the Institute has raised the bar again and we will respond to this challenge as we design new vehicles," Toyota said.
The Insurance Institute plans to change its criteria for the top safety picks next year to incorporate the new test. The group said developed the test after years of analyzing real-world frontal crashes, which kill more than 10,000 people annually in the U.S.
(TM and © Copyright 2012 CBS Radio Inc. and its relevant subsidiaries. CBS RADIO and EYE Logo TM and Copyright 2012 CBS Broadcasting Inc. Used under license. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
