[Subscribe to Daily Digest] |
As our mechanic was saying to someone who brought him a cheap NG900 to safety... "the car's solid + you'll get a few years out of it... Get in a serious collision in a $1000 honda + you're dead..."
I have a buddy who dissed my comments about Saabs + Volvos + safety until he got rear ended in an Accord a few years back... now he drives a Volvo.
Sure the NG900 didn't do that well in the standardized crash testing, as compared to other Saabs + many modern cars, but overall they are still pretty safe. See the ng900 moose test image below. afaik, no other car company does this, and most cars are decimated by a moose (usually killing the occupants). Saab has been testing for this for 3 decades or more!
On the flip side, the current 9-3 was the first vehicle ever to earn an iihs double best pick, and the only one for quite some time. The reason? Saab identified the problem 10 years before iihs added the suv side impact test, and designed the 9-5 and NG9-3 to solve the problem before anyone else. All other manufacturers had to redesign their cars to pass. And that's the crux of it, other manufacturers design to pass the test, Saab has (had) a leading edge safety program (like Volvo), developing things like SAHR and doing things like sequential testing (eg front impact, then rollover of the already crashed car). BTW, afaik, while 9-5 isn't perfect on the iihs SUV side impact test, it is darn close to 5 stars, and is probably the only car on the market that can get anywhere close to that result without side airbags. The 9-5 is very very safe!
Cars have improved in recent years with a multitude of airbags. It all helps. But I wonder how complete their overall safety is (eg in higher speed collisions, oddball collisions etc). There was a recent comment on here re a Subaru Outback with fatalities... A highschool friend of mine was recently killed in a rollover... collisions that typically are walk away situations in Saabs... real life safety matters!
good luck!
James...
posted by 67.158.7...
, Fri, 18 Jun 2010 07:29:08
, Fri, 18 Jun 2010 03:16:23
No Site Registration is Required to Post - Site Membership is optional (Member Features List), but helps to keep the site online
for all Saabers. If the site helps you, please consider helping the site by becoming a member.
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
