Team-BHP - How safe is Innova?

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Also, the central locking was jammed and hence door couldnt be opened during rescue.

None of us are talking about this feature. Most modern cars doors unlock automatically in the event of an accident. Shouldn't a modern design like the Innova have this very basic safety feature?

In india, for reasons unknown to me, people seem to dislike a seatbelt. I make it a habit to wear seatbelts, wheather i am driving or not.
Not even the safest car is safe unless u wear a seatbelt. Be it mercs, beamers, toyotas or any other car with high or medium safety rating can protect occupants in a big crash only when seatbelts are worn.
Infact if u have airbags, it is fatal if seatbelts are not worn.

Now about innova.
Most new cars from toyota including innova follows their own safety standard called Global Outstanding Assessment(GOA), which is one of the best in the world as far as passive safety is concerned. Remember, i am not even talking about active safety(ABS, AIRBAGS), but the structural safety(passive safety), which even the cheapest variant of innova has. So technically, even the cheapest innova is safe enough.
But as i said, all is useless if the seatbelts are not worn.

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Originally Posted by 2fast4u

in general all SUV's are known to turtle if u steer sharply, seen Landcruisers, patrols, Pajeros turned turtle many times.
The little exception being Range Rover.
Cayenne, x5 seem more stable than all of the above more car like handling

Nothing is safe anywhere in todays world and when u r on the road its even more vulnerable.

True, i have happened to see many SUVs turned turtle on highways in middle east countries.Few months back and indian family was killed, when their Suv turned turtle. I think it was in Qatar. The suv was either a GMC or Cherokee.
The softroaders like ml class, cayenne etc are safer in handling.

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Originally Posted by Rtech

Seeing 3-4 accidents of one particular vehicle and then questioning its safety is not the most educated statement to make. NO car in the world can protect its occupants from everything.

Here I am not questioning Innova's stability, I am more concerned about the safety of the passenger compartment.

One observation regarding most overturned Innovas, its mostly the
pillars (and roof) behind the third row that caves/bends in.... in these cases the roof above the first and second row have stayed intact.

Could it be that the last two pillars at the back are weak by design ?

Would the lack of airbags also be a reason that aggravated the problem in the case of referred accident? I uderstand that only the top end model of Innova (at least in Diesel) carries air bags? Considering most buyers use Innova for occassional long drives (or more) possibly air bags should be a standard feature or at least an option in most variants of the car.

Lets also accept that Innova is built for a purpose and it serves that purpose very well. It is as spacious (or more) as any other SUV / MUV in its bracket. Handling and Ride quality is much much better than a Scorpio, Tavera or even an Endeavour (which is priced one class higher). At the end of the day it certainly is not as aerodynamic as a sedan and is not meant to be so either! It has to be appreciated for its strengths. The shortcomings (which are very well) have to be accepted and kept in mind while driving the vehicle.

A 2-year old thread re-opened by for_cars1, but still think its better than opening a new thread.

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Originally Posted by chitbhanu

possibly air bags should be a standard feature or at least an option in most variants of the car.

Yes, I think airbags should be a standard feature in most cars (if not all) and not just the Innova. Reason being that they really save in case of accidents, as I learnt last week.

In last Sunday's Malayala Manorama paper (a Mallu daily), there was a picture of a car that had a real serious accident. It was hit by a truck and the impact was such that one of the wheels, along with parts of the suspension got detached from the car. In the picture given in the paper, the wheel and the car are separated by atleast some 20-30 metres.

Inspite of the severity of the accident, the occupants of the car walked away with negligible injuries, which was attributed to the presence and deployment of airbags.

Try as much as I did, I could not identify the car in the picture:Frustrati, because the snap was taken such that the detatched wheel was in the foreground and the car in the background. It looked like a C-segment sedan though.

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Originally Posted by jkdas (Post 212302)

People think Innova or Scorpio are very safe coz they are big cars. They are safer if one wears seat belts.

I am damn sure that you are right. Shame on people who are ignorant about the use of seat belts.

Yes I agree with you. 9 out of 10 people in India do not wear a seatbelt and shame on them for doing so.:Frustrati Innova is a big and fast vehicle. A big impact would certainly damage it and can cause injury to the passengers. An Air Bag and seat belt could have saved them.

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Originally Posted by vinaykiran79 (Post 895561)

9 out of 10 people in India do not wear a seatbelt and shame on them for doing so.:Frustrati

I too find it really weird that people do not wear seatbelts despite mandated by law. My driver who also falls in the same category thinks it will be less macho of him if he wore seat belts!

Cheers,

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Originally Posted by diabloo (Post 895706)

A Small Game:

You play Police. Seat belt violation costs Rs 100.00. So please stand at a junction and count the number of drivers who are not wearing seat-belt. Lets see how much can you *earn* in 5 minutes :D

Potential earnings will be high, assuming 60% cars are commercial and assuming 10 secs per car at the junction and say 100% of commercial and 50% of non-commercial violate, we can make about Rs 2400 in 5 mins at the above rate - maybe we should make a case to the police to outsource it and charge a 50% commission on the revenue earned this way - not to mention the traffic snarls this would create :)

The downside is that violations will drop dramatically in a few weeks so would the revenue!

Cheers,

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Innova is sold worldwide, and i think safety norms are high in other countries when compared to India, and Innova has passed them

But we also should remember that the same car (any brand) comes with different safety equipment and many times even different structural configurations in different countries.
Like I saw Indian Corolla (last gen) had a very different bumper configuration than the (last gen) US Corolla. Same is true for other brands also.

Hence in absence of our own safety ratings, the ones for other countries can only be used as a proxy, approximate indicator.