[ron178]

The new Volkswagen Virtus for the Mexican market has achieved a five star 2022 Latin NCAP safety rating.

The car sold in Mexico is made in India and based on the MQB A0-IN architecture but is LHD, has side thorax and curtain airbags as standard equipment (instead of options like they are in India), and offers more safety assist technologies like AEB as an option.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnkV23TF1h4

Result page
Press Release

Adult occupant protection (36.94/40 or 92%)
Frontal impact: The protection offered to the driver and passenger head and neck was good, Driver´s chest showed adequate protection and passenger chest showed good protection. Driver and passenger´s knees showed good protection. Driver tibias and passengers left tibia showed adequate protection, passengers right tibia showed good protection. Footwell area was rated as stable and symmetrical between driver and passenger side. The bodyshell was rated as stable and capable of withstanding further loadings. Side impact: Head, abdomen and pelvis protection was good, chest protection was adequate. Side Pole Impact: head, abdomen and pelvis protection was good, chest protection was marginal. Whiplash: the seat showed good protection to the adult neck. UN R32: the car meet the rear impact structure requirements. AEB City: the car offers AEB City meeting Latin NCAP technical and availability requirements. Rescue sheet: available according to Latin NCAP criteria.

Child occupant protection (45.00/49 or 92%)
The child seat for the 3-year-old child was installed rearward facing using ISOFIX anchorages and support leg. It was capable of preventing head exposure and offered good protection. The Q1.5 was installed rearward facing using ISOFIX anchorages and support leg, the CRS prevented the head exposure offering full protection. Side Impact: Both CRSs offered full protection. All of the CRSs tested for installation passed. The car has ISOFIX anchorages as standard, meeting also I-size marking requirements. All seating positions are equipped with three-point seatbelts. Airbag warning when a rearward CRS is installed in the passenger seat meets Latin NCAP requirements. The car has passenger airbag disconnection via manual switch as standard.

Vulnerable road users (25.48 out of 48 or 53%)
The car meets Pedestrian protection UN127 regulations. The car showed majority of areas with good, marginal and adequate protection levels. Upper leg performance was overall weak, lower leg performance was good. AEB VRU: the car offers AEB VRU as optional but not meeting Latin NCAP availability requirements, it was not assessed.

Safety assist (36.54/50 or 85%)
The car offers SBR in all seating positions. ESC: The car offers ESC as standard. The Moose test performance reached a maximum of 95 km/h under ADAC Moose test and 70 km/h under Consumer magazine Moose test. SA: the car offers a speed limitation device as standard. BSD: The car does not offer BSD. LSS and RED: The car does not offer LSS or RED. AEB Interurban: The car does offers AEB Inter Urban meeting Latin NCAP technical and availability requirements.

Also on test were the Brazilian Toyota Corolla, which scored five stars, and the Brazilian-made Volkswagen Polo facelift, which had to settle for three stars, let down by a penalty for poor coverage of the side thorax-head airbag and the relative lack of optional safety assist technologies.

[karan0009]

Good to see that all the products from VW MQB A0-IN scoring a five star rating in the crash tests. VW/Skoda is not able to market there 5 star rated products Kushaq, Taigun & now Virtus/Slavia properly.
TATA was bang on with the marketing of Nexon as India's safest car and sales chart speak the same. Wake up VW/Skoda!

[sunikkat]

Isn't it the same NCAP where Tucson with 6 airbags scored only 3 stars?

Anyway good show by VW. With this Latin NCAP rating and the 5 star GNCAP rating of Kushaq/Taigun, I think it is more safe to assume India model Slavia/Virtus will score a clean 5 stars too, if tested

[ron178]

Originally Posted by karan0009

VW/Skoda is not able to market there 5 star rated products Kushaq, Taigun

They're really shouting it from the rooftops. At least Skoda is. It's everywhere on their social media profiles, there was a TV at the dealer showing the ratings, there are internet ads, and even on FM radio where I live there's an ad about a couple upgrading to a Kushaq because of safety concerns with their old car.

Of course it would have been much more effective in 2021.

Originally Posted by karan0009

& now Virtus/Slavia properly.

They should not be marketing this rating for the Virtus/Slavia because this result is not valid for India. When the Slavia's results are published by Global NCAP they can market them.

[GTO]

Love VW & Skoda for their commitment to safe cars. I had posted as such in the early Kushaq reviews. And going by how the Kushaq & Taigun scored a full 5-stars, I have no doubts on the safety of the Slavia & Virtus twins.

Three things you can count on with VW-Skoda:

- Driving pleasure . Whether the VAG 2.0 cars or the Octavia or the Kodiaq / Tiguan, the turbo-petrols + fast DSGs + suspension tune make them a whole lot of fun to drive.

- Top levels of safety.

- Unfortunately, DSG failures and other reliability issues. Especially with that notorious DQ200 which they are still using.

[FAIAAA]

Originally Posted by GTO

: Three things you can count on with VW-Skoda:

- Driving pleasure . Whether the VAG 2.0 cars or the Octavia or the Kodiaq / Tiguan, the turbo-petrols + fast DSGs + suspension tune make them a whole lot of fun to drive.

- Top levels of safety.

- Unfortunately, DSG failures and other reliability issues. Especially with that notorious DQ200 which they are still using.

Totally agree on the parameters of driving pleasure and safety.
Regarding #3, one can get the ( hopefully) more reliable 1.0 L Torque convertor automatic, which should be as much ( if not more ) fun as the DSG till 100-120 kmph

[nagarjun]

Originally Posted by FAIAAA

Totally agree on the parameters of driving pleasure and safety.
Regarding #3, one can get the ( hopefully) more reliable 1.0 L Torque convertor automatic, which should be as much ( if not more ) fun as the DSG till 100-120 kmph

Been driving my Vento TSI for 6 years and 1 lakh KMs, I can definitely vouch for the driving pleasure. Safety is ascertained through these ratings.

DSG DQ200 is still a question mark, I had it changed very early in my ownership under warranty and the new one is holding well(touchwood) so far. Other than that, rest of my ownership has been pretty straightforward with just periodic services and even the service costs/quality are on-par for the current market.

I drove my friends 1.0 TSI MT in Skoda Rapid last weekend and what fun ride it was. Gem of an engine which reaches 100+ speeds in a blink and we even got a mileage of around 14kmpl with quite some spirited driving on 2 lane highways.
Not able to find any alternatives which tick all these boxes to replace my Vento even if I am ready to stretch my budget to 30lacs. My Vento is such a value for money at 13.5lacs in 2016.

[CafeRacer16]

Originally Posted by GTO

: Unfortunately, DSG failures and other reliability issues.

We should also add issue with air conditioning in 1.0L models to this list, it is really sub-par for such a costly car. Even their so called software upgrade had no effect in performance.

Perhaps, this point could be added in the team-bhp official review as well.

[StopUnderrides]

Originally Posted by ron178

The car sold in Mexico is made in India

The car “sold in India” is usually inferior to the one made in India for foreign markets.
It’s not even that Latin markets are developed countries like US/UK/Germany but they seem to have better safety standards than India.

[Old_Salt]

Originally Posted by karan0009

Good to see that all the products from VW MQB A0-IN scoring a five star rating in the crash tests. VW/Skoda is not able to market there 5 star rated products Kushaq, Taigun & now Virtus/Slavia properly.
TATA was bang on with the marketing of Nexon as India's safest car and sales chart speak the same. Wake up VW/Skoda!

I think the customer needs to wake up, VW/Skoda are awake and produced a fantastic product.

[tsi_niks1989]

Originally Posted by StopUnderrides

The car “sold in India” is usually inferior to the one made in India for foreign markets.

Yes this holds true for some Korean brands which usually have inferior safety standards for cars sold in India.

Volkswagen group recently got their Kushaq/Taigun ("Made in India" and "Sold in India") tested in GNCAP where they performed the best compared to any other car manufactured in India. 5 stars in Adult and 5 stars in Child Safety helping them set a new safety standard in India.

The Virtus tested in Latin NCAP has same safety features when compared to the TopLine/GT Virtus sold in India except AEB so it is surely going to get 5 stars when tested by GNCAP.

[Sunderdeep]

Originally Posted by StopUnderrides

The car “sold in India” is usually inferior to the one made in India for foreign markets.
It’s not even that Latin markets are developed countries like US/UK/Germany but they seem to have better safety standards than India.

It is not the case with VW/Skoda cars. I have confirmed that with the Brand Director while seeing them getting built on the same assembly line at Chakan plant. They were getting ADAS and 6 Airbags as standard. However, these ratings are partially valid for India as a feel-good factor because of the stable-bodyshell rating and the way how car scored in two modules i.e Adult Occupancy (83%) and Child Occupancy (92%) with 2 airbags getting deployed and almost the same safety kit in India.

However, in my circle, I have noticed that there is too much negativity about VW/Skoda about their maintenance cost that even the hefty salary class overlooks all positives and prefers other brands. VW/Skoda really needs to market service packs and ensure that their existing Polo/Rapid customers spread positive words about the ownership costs.

[StopUnderrides]

It is not the case with VW/Skoda cars. I have confirmed that with the Brand Director while seeing them getting built on the same assembly line at Chakan plant.

The Australia export(Right Hand Drive export) Jeep Compass was also made in India. That does not mean that the ANCAP rating applies to the sold in India version.

Please don’t be under the false impression that some brands don’t compromise on safety. Everyone makes a car only as safe as customers want it.

If what you say is true why doesn’t the brand Director or Mr. Gupta go public on record saying that except for AEB the body in white is the same in both cars?

I’ve seen Mr. Velusamy of Mahindra R&D talking in detail about the % of Boron steel in the “body in white” of XUV 700 in a public interview to Car and Bike. Why not go that route?

Material, adhesives, sensors is where the brands cut cost-even if both versions are made in the same plant.

https://youtu.be/bztfrYCfraE

[Vipin Kumar]

Great result for Virtus! But what about Slavia? Is it not exported to the Latin American/Mexican markets?
In India, it is sad that VW decided to bring the 1.5 Virtus only in the DSG avatar.

[ron178]

Originally Posted by Sunderdeep

because of the stable-bodyshell rating and the way how car scored in two modules i.e Adult Occupancy (83%) and Child Occupancy (92%) with 2 airbags getting deployed and almost the same safety kit in India.

The side airbags deployed in both the side MDB and side pole tests. In GNCAP testing the Slavia will not be fitted with side airbags for the MDB test because they are not fitted as standard (for the side pole test it will be because the GNCAP allows them as optional equipment).

As for frontal impact performance it can differ across LHD and RHD variants of the same car: now when it comes to Volkswagen I personally trust their engineering, and we also have evidence in the form of the Taigun, but if one were to hold them to the same standards as any other manufacturer, it would be wrong to extend an ODB result across variants with a different hand of drive.

Originally Posted by StopUnderrides

The car “sold in India” is usually inferior to the one made in India for foreign markets.
It’s not even that Latin markets are developed countries like US/UK/Germany but they seem to have better safety standards than India.

The Mexican Virtus has more safety features as standard and optional. It has six airbags as standard and rear seatbelt reminders, and offers optional AEB city, intercity and pedestrian.

If the Slavia (or Indian Virtus) were to be assessed against the latest Latin NCAP protocols:

• expect pedestrian protection to be similar (5 stars), since the Mexican Virtus' AEB-VRU was not tested anyway because of low sales volume
• except child protection to be in the five-star band, around 85% based on the Taigun (Latin NCAP child protection scoring out of 49 is somewhat similar to the GNCAP's), but don't extend the Mexican Virtus' result because one of the child restraints VW Mexico selected (the Takata for the Q3 dummy) is not sold in India
• based on my calculation safety assist should be 3 stars
• adult protection - taking the side impact score from the Taigun without side airbags which has a higher seating position - would be 51%, barely 2 stars, and considering the Virtus' lower driver seat R-point and the RHD Taigun's high tibia indices a lower side impact score is a very real possibility, which could bring it into one-star territory.

Latin NCAP's star rating is decided by the worst of all four categories, so that implies a 2022 Latin NCAP rating (if it was possible) of 2 stars for the India-spec Virtus, and that's being optimistic.

To be very clear, this is still almost certainly a GNCAP 5 star car unless something goes wrong with the side impact (if chest protection in either test slips to weak it might cause a chain reaction with seatbelt reminder points, but I don't expect that from VW)

Originally Posted by StopUnderrides

If what you say is true why doesn’t the brand Director or Mr. Gupta go public on record saying that except for AEB the body in white is the same in both cars?

VW are usually somewhat conservative in their communications and my guess is they would rather have an RHD version tested by the GNCAP than make a claim prematurely.

Originally Posted by Vipin Kumar

Great result for Virtus! But what about Slavia? Is it not exported to the Latin American/Mexican markets?

I think of all of the 'big three' LatAm markets Skoda only sells cars in Chile and that doesn't include the Slavia and Kushaq - not yet, at least - but I believe Škoda will soon export LHD Kushaqs to some LAC countries.