Chevy Malibu Better than Volvo S60 In Recent IIHS Side Impact Test????

I guess this is a milestone of sorts in the evolution of crash
protection from being a specialty feature of Volvo and into being
something for everyone. I am also sure that a chorus of apologists
will arise claiming that the IIHS test is somehow flawed. To those
people I ask: When Volvo does well on IIHS tests, doesn't Volvo brag
about it?

Here is the news release from IIHS today:

http://www.hwysafety.org/news_releases/2005/pr060505.htm


A few exerpts:
Volvo is acceptable: The S60's performance was not as good as the A4's
or Malibu's. With the standard curtain airbags, head protection was
good. But forces on the driver dummy's pelvis were high.

"Even though the S60 has standard torso airbags for front-seat occupants
along with the curtains, a fractured pelvis for the driver would be
likely in a real-world crash like this," Lund says. "Volvo still has
some work to do to improve the S60's performance."
Granted the Malibu they speak of is equipped with optional side air bags
while the Volvo has them standard. However, the Audi A4 and Saab 9-3
also did better than the S60.

Volvo is no longer the clear leader in crash protection.

John

'96 854 110,000 miles
'72 1800ES 108,000 miles

 

The Volvo's design is also older then any one of those cars - The Mailbu
shares a platform with the Saab 9-3, and the Saab was picked as Swedens
safest car (could have been the 9-5... but I know the 9-3 is very safe
too)... so Saab knows a thing or two about safety, and teaches GM, as Volvo
teaches Ford.

The Audi was also redesigned for this year.

What is more disapointing is that the new S40 got acceptable, to have the
new Jetta really show everyone how to make a small car safe, it got a Best
Pick for side, and a Good rating (tho not best pick) for frontal offset.

I don't know if Volvo was the "clear leader" for a while now - Saabs seem to
do just as good or better, and back in the day you were probably as safe in
a Mercedes Benz.... Volvo just has a more vocal safety regime, now that
everyone is concered about safety, or so it would seem, you hear more and
more about other cars being just as good... With computer technology pretty
much everyone can be at the top, if they want to spend the money.

 

Sometime in the 90s Volvo clearly changed it's focus to go after the
trendy-fashion thing and leave behind their traditional priorities. The
current sales success of the XC90 is likely to continue encouraging
Volvo down the fashion path. The problem with fashion is that success
is always fleeting.

John

 

What else could they have done? They had to put a bit more style into their
products... everyone else did, Mercedes cars were generally just as ugly and
Audi cars were far uglier then the Volvo's of the 80's - and both companies
changed their styles in pretty much the same way - first rounded squares,
then more swoopy designs... Audi still has more of a rounded square shape
until very recently... MB has made all their cars ugly (IMO), and Volvo's -
well they still look muscular, strong, and Volvo-ish to me... Tho I only
grew up with Volvos from the 70's/80's.

If they kept selling highly functional boxes only an enthusiast would love,
they would have gone bankrupt - look how few people actually buy Saabs, and
look at the stop gap solutions GM is coming up with to "help" them (rebadged
Imprezza and Trailblazer - Volvo's building their own cars on top-notch
global platforms that they do a lot of design work on - and they still use
all their own engines).... The XC90 is well received... It's an SUV, so
what - it's how you make money, don't like it - don't buy it... Its safer
then a V70 in general, except on accident avoidance - performs well, and
it's low emissions... Every car maker needs an SUV right now - because
people want them, if you don't build what your customers want, you lose
sales to other companies.

In my opinion, a Volvo is easier to own then ever... a 960 wagon was $42000
CAD in 1993 when we bought ours.... a new XC70 with the bells and whistles
is around $50000 CAD, a V70 is around $45000 CAD.... In comparion a base
model VW Golf was $11000 on the road in 1991, and we just paid $21000 for a
base model in early 2004... Volvo kept there prices down for what you get! -
Another comparison... A Mercedes 300 wagon wasn't much more then a Volvo in
the early 90's (at least according to my dad who cross shopped a 300 wagon
with the 965 - the Volvo was a better car and cheaper) - now an E-class
wagon is around $70-90k CAD.

 

Other manufactures are catching up, Volvo was decades ahead years ago but
it's inevitable that some others will begin to catch up eventually, there
reaches a point when there's much less left to improve.

 

Right. For example:
http://www.driveandstayalive.com/info section/crash testing/crash-testing-centers_honda.htm