Is A-star not a Safe star?

[sidindica]

Euro NCAP: Q5, Jazz, i20, Soul and 3008 Achieve 5-Star Rating, Suzuki Alto gets only 3-Stars - Carscoop

European car safety testing body Euro-NCAP has announced its latest batch of results for six new cars. Five of these models, the Audi Q5, Honda Jazz, Hyundai i20, Kia Soul and Peugeot 3008 received Euro NCAP's maximum five star award while Suzuki's made-in-India Alto scored only three stars, its rating limited by its performance in adult occupant protection, child protection and safety assistance technologies. Euro NCAP made a special note on the Honda Jazz and the Hyundai i20 as both cars managed to achieve a high score in pedestrian safety.

"We would like to commend the Honda Jazz and the Hyundai i20 for their impressive pedestrian scores that not only meet current requirements, but also meet Euro NCAP's future requirements," Euro NCAP said in a statement.

All six vehicles were tested with Euro NCAP's new overall rating scheme that was introduced in 2009 and covers Adult Occupant Protection, Child Occupant Protection, Pedestrian Protection and a new area of assessment, Safety Assist.


Under the new testing regime, vehicles are awarded a single overall score from one to five stars with the overall rating being based on the car's performance in each of the four main areas and the scores are weighted with respect to each other.[/FONT]

[Ram_NP]

Good to know that two of Hyundai group cars have been rated 5 star. Specially i20 which is made in India. It shows that Hyundai is spendig on safety.

Honda JAzz's score is impressive too.

One question, are these ratings valid for the cars sold in India?

[theragingbull]

the A-star never seemed to be a safe car to me. In fact, none of the Maruti hatchbacks (except for Swift may be) have a NCAP rating of more than 3.

@Ram-NP
These ratings do not matter to India, as we don't have any law which says about the minimum safety in Indian cars. Abroad, every car has to pass a crash test otherwise it cannot sell in that country.

[akbaree]

Originally Posted by Ram_NP

One question, are these ratings valid for the cars sold in India?

I want to point just that. These ratings may not be relevant on Indian models. For example although Jazz is shown as rated 5 stars in the post below but Honda's Indian website says that Jazz has 4 star rating.

[vivekiny2k]

but it says european model.

[srishiva]

@akbaree, the old jazz might be the one with 4 stars

[aaggoswami]

1) The quality of cars sold in India is not similar to the quality of same models available in developed markets.

2) Swift, SX4 and Ritz ( splash ) have 4- star rating.

3) A-star is a relatively small car and not so high in cost, read upto some extent its build upto cost.

For the cost of the car, I believe that its a nice car and its not entirely low down the range like Spark or Aveo. Even Indica Vista will not score more than 3 in its standard form ( read this in ACI ). They are aiming for 4 stars with some modifications.

[YC.BALENO.CHD]

Originally Posted by theragingbull

the A-star never seemed to be a safe car to me. In fact, none of the Maruti hatchbacks (except for Swift may be) have a NCAP rating of more than 3.

The crash test's scorecard can hardly be questioned.
But IMHO its close to being unfair. To put it clearly let me first of all discount the Q5, Soul and 3008.


Now coming to A-star, i20 and the Jazz.


i20--- Costs close to 6.5 lakhs for the model with full quota of airbags.
Jazz---Rumoured to Cost close to 8.5 lakhs and let say it comes with 6 airbags.

A-star--- Costs 4.25 lakhs for model with 2 airbags.


Talking about the Indian scenario, how many cars that have 2 airbags + ABS retail for around 4 lakhs??!!


Just sticking to these 3 cars. . its not surprising that the car that costs less than half of the other doesnt fare as well in the safety test.

It will be better if we compare the i20 with say a ritz and/or a swift. Compariong A-star with i20 (even in safety) is like comparing the SX4 with a Civic.
I know safety should be paramount and it would not had been bad if A-star could score better but the NCAP scorecard should be treated more as test report then a comparo. Come on, no one ever expected teh A-star to be compared with a q5 or even the jazz.


Regards.

[breezydrive]

Originally Posted by YC.BALENO.CHD

It will be better if we compare the i20 with say a ritz and/or a swift. Compariong A-star with i20 (even in safety) is like comparing the SX4 with a Civic.

I agree with that point.

Leave A-star alone, I don't like any of the current generation cars by Maruti. The good old Baleno, Esteem, Zen & M -800 (original) were something to say about though lacking in safety standards. No offence to the owners though.

[arin_12]

Few point :
1. Indian Customer really does not care for Safety much. We tried to see resale value/milage/cost...
2. Indian made car are far more lower quality than many country
3. Company make more profit by selling car in India

[YC.BALENO.CHD]

Originally Posted by breezydrive

I agree with that point.

Leave A-star alone, I don't like any of the current generation cars by Maruti. The good old Baleno, Esteem, Zen & M -800 (original) were something to say about though lacking in safety standards. No offence to the owners though.

Yeah, Baleno, esteem and Zen were very good in quite a few areas, and yes were not actually very safe though. Do not know of the Zen, but esteem was really lacking in crash safety. As for Baleno, it had a mere 2 star for the NCAP rating, while cars like Accent too got 2 star. Fact is that baleno got 2 star for non airbag version and accent got if for variant with 2 air bags. Still, baleno was no match for the new cars like Aveos, NHCs, etc. in crash safety.


However, what I like about Maruti is that it offered WagonR, swift and Estilo with optional airbags and ABS at a time when most others did not provided such option for similar cars. And for that I'll give maruti the credit it deserves.


Anyways, coming back to the topic, what I am thinking is when the Euro spec A-star got 3 stars in NCAP rating, what will our non-airbag version manage? High time govt. should make atleast driver's airbag mandatory even if it leads to higher costs.

[d3mon]

Go to this link: Euro NCAP - For safer cars | Suzuki Alto

"Side impact airbags are optional on some variants of the Alto. The thorax-protecting airbag is expected to be widely sold and was included in the tests; the head-protecting bag is not and was not fitted to the test vehicle."

If you're comparing this v/s an i20 with 6 airbags, it wouldn't take an NCAP test to tell me that the i20 is better.

What's more, their rating system has been totally revised, so you can't really compare the new ratings to the ratings given earlier to older cars.

EG: A car that would have received 3 stars in the earlier rating system received ZERO STARS in the new one.
Source: Brilliance BS4: Not so Brilliant in ADAC Crash Tests, receives Zero Stars - Carscoop

If it has received 3 stars without the full complement of airbags in the new rating system, I would say that it is a VERY SAFE CAR.

PS: The swift is a 4 star car in the older rating system.

PPS: YC.Baleno, I'm with you on the positioning issue.

PPPS: Who here cares about pedestrian safety? No seriously, most of the times, it is the jaywalker walking in a stupor that literally walks into the path of an oncoming vehicle without any regard for his own life. If he can't be concerned about his own life, why should we even care ?

[YC.BALENO.CHD]

Originally Posted by d3mon

What's more, their rating system has been totally revised, so you can't really compare the new ratings to the ratings given earlier to older cars.

EG: A car that would have received 3 stars in the earlier rating system received ZERO STARS in the new one.
Source: Brilliance BS4: Not so Brilliant in ADAC Crash Tests, receives Zero Stars - Carscoop

Thanks for the clarification. Wasn't aware of the development.

If it has received 3 stars without the full complement of airbags in the new rating system, I would say that it is a VERY SAFE CAR.

That is what I had been trying to convey. It would be interesting to know how i20/jazz shall fare without the full complement of airbags or how would an a-star fare in the test with as many airbags as these two cars.

PPPS: Who here cares about pedestrian safety? No seriously, most of the times, it is the jaywalker walking in a stupor that literally walks into the path of an oncoming vehicle without any regard for his own life. If he can't be concerned about his own life, why should we even care ?

True but its not just that, even most of us car buying folks always give safety the secondary spot. Most of us may spend 50K on adding alloys and DVD players but when it comes to ticking of Airbag and ABS options we portray a 'who cares? am a great driver' kinda attitude.

Maruti got dissappointed with the fact that the ZXI variant of the swift (which has std. airbags and ABS+EBD) which was priced not very much higher than the VXi and was rather a VFM model with all those bells and whistles got only a lukewarm response and hence no ZDi variant came for the Swift diesel.


While purchasing Baleno I asked the dealer it its possible for Maruti to treat the purchase as a one off case and provide atleast the ABS on the car and may charge accordingly. The sales manager's face was like--->
However, later he was not surprised when dad bought the SX4 ZXi just because of the safety features it offered.


edit-- Mods are requested to change the title to something like " Is A-star not a Safe star??" as the current title seems more like a verdict and a 3-star rating does not really make the car 'unsafe'.



Regards

[d3mon]

Originally Posted by YC.BALENO.CHD

edit-- Mods are requested to change the title to something like " Is A-star not a Safe star??" as the current title seems more like a verdict and a 3-star rating does not really make the car 'unsafe'.
Regards

+1 to that.

Or maybe even 'EURO NCAP results for jazz, i20 and a-star compared'

[anachronix]

Why do you guys want to compare the safety points between the Jazz/i20/A-Star & whats the point in doing so?

When the EuroNCAP says that a car has scored only 3 Stars, then its only a 3 star rated unsafe car. There is nothing like it is built worthy for a human being who can spend only 4 Lakh Rs on a car. Even if a person spends 4 Lakhs or 40 Lakhs the same standard safety NCAP rating SHOULD be available.

A-Star is unsafe and for that matter most of the Maruti cars are unsafe. It would be interesting to see if all the Maruti cars are sent for a EuroNCAP rating!