[shortbread]

I am really interested in finding the NCAP ratings of two upcoming cars, the Thar & India spec Jimny.


THAR
I am hopeful for the Thar, M&M have prioritised safety in their recent products and would be surprised if the Thar scored less that 4 stars. Another major improvement vis a vis the previous model is the On-road dynamics as per preliminary reviews and the car being quite stable at 80km/h.

JIMNY
Scraped through with 3 stars at the Euro NCAP tests two years earlier and we are talking about the International variant, so a full safety spec of collision avoidance tech, lane-departure warning and six airbags among others. Plus a complete body with no missing body frame/member, no extra light metal etc. Despite this Suzuki have ceased selling the Jimny in Europe, apparently due to emission norms!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhHeNgfLGqU

Which begs the BIG question, if launched in India how many stars will the 'local spec' Jimny get? This will be a car costing the north of Rs12 lacs most likely. Plus the Jimny will be targeted at the lifestyle crowd, most of whom will be using the Jimny in urban and highway environments than the proper off road surroundings it was designed for. If true this Spanish test of the Jimny shows extremely poor handling especially at speeds in the high 70s (kms not miles!).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roIicG5RwNk

Please use the translation feature on youtube.

[gjnnbagal]

It's raining posts on this thread, in just 2 days more than 378 posts.
Hot thread indeed.

I was very much inclined towards Grand i10 back in 2016, went for Tiago instead. Although being a happy owner of Tiago, I recommended Grand i10 to many friends/colleagues for its engine refinement (only). But now on I should stop myself from recommending that to anyone.

Average buyers are definitely considering safety as one of the parameters while car purchase nowadays and these crash test results will indirectly help Altroz and Nexon for sure.

[Napalm]

Originally Posted by Shreyas

Even if they tested the 6 airbags version, won't the side airbags contribute to only side impacts? GNCAP does only frontal crash test. So, as you said, the base trim thing shouldn't be considered.

When XUV 300 and Yaris could give 7 airbags right from the base variants(?), why not by KIA in the Seltos atleast from the mid-variants. I think it's only available on the top of the line GTX+.

That's not true. GNCAP does side-impact tests too. We can clearly see the side-impact tests done on XUV3OO, Nexon & Altroz in these videos by GNCAP.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKDJiU2b7Mc

at 0:56 time

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yL1JgzfBvWk

at 0:39 time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5njR2JH7uo

at 0:59 time.

Originally Posted by Tom Sooraj

Please note that Zest has an UNSTABLE body shell. Attaching image for reference.

My bad. Yes, you are right. Thanks for pointing it out. Just checked the GNCAP website and noticed that XUV3OO,Nexon & Altroz have stable body shells. That explains their 5 star rating. Tiago & Tigor have unstable body shell just like Zest, so they too get a 4 star rating.

I guess this indicates that unless the car has a stable body shell, it will never get a 5-star safety rating no-matter-what and will have to settle for 4 or lesser ratings. I guess that's why Zest,Tiago & Tigor got 4 stars. But Seltos got even lesser at 3 stars. Hope Hyundai-Kia can improve it to alteast 4 stars.

[Red Liner]

Originally Posted by shortbread

I If true this Spanish test of the Jimny shows extremely poor handling especially at speeds in the high 70s (kms not miles!).


Please use the translation feature on Youtube.

https://youtu.be/w3sGkP8HeBY

Once you understand the intended use of this car and drive accordingly, its okay.

This car is primarily a 4*4 activity vehicle to be used in the mountains or the cities and not primarily for cross country highway runs to beat land speed records.

Horses for courses.

The seltos on the other hand has been marketed as a fast cross continental highway SUV for your entire family.

Now you tell me, would anyone with half a brain take the seltos on a 4*4 adventure and the Jimny for high speed Pune Mumbai runs?

I will buy the jimny even if it comes with zero crash test rating. My intended use will be 100% what the vehicle designers envisioned the car to be.

[sridhar-v]

My 2007 Grand Vitara has better chest, thighs and legs protection that the new Seltos.
So I will hold on to the Grand Vitara as long as I can. And I can drive carefree with the additional stability the 4WD gives.

Heck, my 2008 Santro is only marginally worse off than the Seltos. So it will only be replaced with an Ecosport eventually.

[nakul0888]

Hey guys, I think I know a way how enthusiasts like us can have better choices in the automobile market instead of being trapped in this conundrum of choosing between boring/old bare bones but safe car or feature packed death trap.

What if we had a market system where we Indians can choose to spend our hard earned money from a substantially bigger international market that spans multiple continents where cars even though not built domestically, satisfies our needs and desires that we prefer. And you can do that without being taxed to death as if we were importing heroin or weapons grade uranium. I think such a system would neatly solve bhpians problems. Instead of this flimsy seltos maybe we can just buy a Mazda or a Subaru or an equivalent Ford . Possibilities are endless!!!!!!

Please pass this message to your fellow car enthusiast nationalists.

[Shashankjk]

It should be made mandatory to publish the results of NCAP tests in the car brochure. Just like the energy efficiency stars published on electronics. That's the only way to make general public aware of saftey ratings of the cars they are purchasing. Not sure of it would be SIAMor ARAI or Ministry of Road Transport and Highways who would be making such rules

[GipsyDanger]

In the end, it's all down to manufacturers like Tata and Mahindra to approach this situation. Our forum has been hugely influential in the Indian Automotive Scene, but our reach is still limited; these companies have really yet to take advantage of their massive media presence.

Sure, Tata has been promoting the safety ratings of Altroz and Nexon like hell, but their efforts so far have been very mellow compared to what the king of Television ads used to do back in the day.

Just sticking 5 stars at the edge of an Altroz billboard is simply not enough.

Both of them need to ramp up their marketing quotient upto 11.... garnish customer cars with massive stickers big enough for other motorists to take a glance at. Go full "INTERNET INSIDE" if they have to.

Tata's tongue-in-cheek Altroz ads aren't working enough, they really need to go full offensive with TVCs big time.

They really need to demolish the single biggest myth planted by Maruti onto the minds of buying public: "Safety doesn't matter at traffic speeds."

TV Commercials, Short films on safety, car rallies via owner's clubs.... they really should take a leaf out of NRA's book and learn tactics to really manipulate people's minds....in a good way of course.

This alone will get people flocking towards their showrooms....and out of it once the salesmen show total apathy

Honestly can't think of any way we as responsible motorists can single-handedly change the mind of the buying public...

Maruti has broadcasted one statement over another that they have absolutely no intention of improving standards of safety unless the Govt. says so....and no news from Bharat NCAP in 3 years can only mean that we won't be getting a privilege of being rightfully served of what we pay anytime soon. Any move made by the Govt. will be challenged by the lobbyists...

The least Tata and Mahindra can do is inspire other companies to follow suit...companies like Honda and Ford who have been sitting on the fence, having their shares of ups and downs. To inspire Renault to finally take this market seriously.

If not, all this outrage and furore is of no use. We'll simply have to move on and pray to god more companies won't resort to such cost-cutting measures as the Koreans did.

[Jaatree]

Was seriously considering Sonet and Ecosport. Dropped Sonet after reading about these results.

Entire ecosystem seems skewed against paying customers. Government, governing bodies or courts nobody gives a toss about the common folk.

[tirumalavoleti]

So sad to see the safety ratings. This shows how hard Tata has worked for the 5 star rating to Nexon.

Tata should continue on the safety importance.

Not all people view the safety dimension for many unknown reasons in India. There should be strong awareness.

Government push of mandatory airbag and revere sensor is most welcome. If this push does not exit, air bags would have been only on top variants like in the past times.

New honda city has 6 airbags in N-1 vriant VX, Tata harrier has 6 air bags in N-1 variant XZ. Similarly all the manufactures should provide safety equipment to the lower variants also.

It is important for the people to think about 6 air bags over the connected car, 7 speaker system, panoramic sun roof, ventilated seats etc..

[vishy76]

While BHPians have rightfully filled up 27 pages of a thread in response to these crash test ratings, here's what auto journalists are upto on social media and youtube. Everyone has suddenly started questioning the sanity of Global NCAP, though this isn't the first time a car has performed badly.

This is what Siddharth Patankar had to say in the comments section of a video he had made on the crash test results. Keeping aside the baseless reasoning in the video itself, the replies are what really shock me:


Posted by a very popular self proclaimed influencer on instagram who seemingly promotes safety a lot:




The best for the last. A journalist as well known as Renuka Kirplani posting such irrelevant and logic defying replies:


It is also surprising to see very little moderator activity on this thread. Crazydriver is the only moderator who has posted something in relevance to the KIA fiasco.

[VaidhiR]

I have been consulting, evaluating, simulating and testing cars for different international safety protocols for over 8 years now and I am surprised that people associate the price of the car to its safety level.

1. A car that costs 20l doesn't have to be more safe than a car that costs 10l.
2. A car sold in Europe or Japan or USA may have a different safety rating to one sold in India.

This is primarily because of the following.

- OEMs make the difficult choice of removing certain "strengthening" profiles and plates because it is raw weight. As long as the structure is able to fulfil strength, rigidity and durability tests, any addition is seen as weight addition and all unnecessary weights result in additional fuel consumption. Yes it is difficult to the OEMs because for them, they are taking a proven product, changing them and hoping that it holds up in case of an accident. And the loss of face for them is worth much more than the expenses saved by removing a couple of profiles here and there.

- India, with its 1.3b population has one of the lowest per capita car ownerships in the world. 28 vehicles per 1000 citizens in 2016. We are still way off to demand EUNCAP or JNCAP or KNCAP or USNCAP levels of safety. Right now, the condition is dire because the market is making a shift from 2/3 wheelers to 4 wheelers, which is in essence, a huge shift considering the population and their economic levels.

- We have to look at it individually. A car thats homologated to be driven on Indian roads, is a car thats "made for India". For the sake of logic and argument, I am excluding the CBUs and imports. And if our homologation laws and G-NCAP regulations allow it, the OEMs are going to do what they can to save some money and pass it on to the customer. This brings us again to #2.

- Having said that, it is not like the OEMs can't make the cars safer. I had an argument with another friend who drives a European Swift. Its not bad TBH. The Swift got 3 starts in the more stringent EUNCAP ratings in 2017. OEMs only offer what we want. So dont be surprised that a car that has a good rating in the international market, have been crap in the Indian market.

It will take time for cars in India to be "safe" because thats the level we are in right now. We dont have to make cars safer now. We need a safer form of mobility, i.e. graduating from 2/3 wheelers to 4 wheelers. And protocols like G-NCAP and BNVSAP aid in that because OEMs are coming to realise that it affects their wallets. This is where we must focus and it will take time.

So demand and buy safer cars. But drive safe as well. Because without one, the other is just a pile of horse apples.

[GTO]

Originally Posted by vishy76

It is also surprising to see very little moderator activity on this thread. Crazydriver is the only moderator who has posted something in relevance to the KIA fiasco.

What connection? What the heck are you implying? When Mods post, we do as regular members. Do you want all moderators to come and make a token post?

And yes, just FYI, I did post earlier on this thread.

It would be great to apply some common sense before posting just about anything. Don't give in to any crazy stories, theories and conspiracies cooking in your mind.

[CEF_Beasts]

Originally Posted by vishy76

The best for the last. A journalist as well known as Renuka Kirplani posting such irrelevant and logic defying replies:
Attachment 2079694

I always looked upon Renuka Kirpalani as an expert and knowledgeable person but yesterday after reading what she had written about keyboard warriors defaming the Seltos I lost it! You can find my comments here! The most illogical things were being said in the comments section.

[Shashwat.75]

Originally Posted by CEF_Beasts

Attachment 2079696

Attachment 2079697

Attachment 2079698

Attachment 2079699

This bias was more or less expected from her given that she owns a Seltos herself ( she mentioned it in the Autocar' s comparison video of Seltos and Creta.)