MB can't even get the basics right anymore!!
10-31-06, 07:17 AM
#31
Pole Position
Sombodys got MB envy. 
IIHS has gone down the drain from my books ever since Brian O'neal retired. I've read that same stupid seat test, they think fords seat is better because it is structurly weak so it gave more cushion during a crash.
I just had to LOL when I read that. I wouldn't be suprised if IIHS are taking money from ford some how.
IIHS has gone down the drain from my books ever since Brian O'neal retired. I've read that same stupid seat test, they think fords seat is better because it is structurly weak so it gave more cushion during a crash.
I just had to LOL when I read that. I wouldn't be suprised if IIHS are taking money from ford some how.
10-31-06, 08:16 AM
#32
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2. How much weight do you place on IIHS studies when buying a vehicle?
3. Why do you trust IIHS testing?
4. As for not considering a sore neck an injury - many lawyers would disagree
10-31-06, 08:44 AM
#33
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Yes, becusae comparing the Camery to the E Class is apples to apples right?
So basically what you're saying is, who cares if it gets good ratings in other tests, and lets just focus on the test you're bent about? Then claiming they can't get it right and it is an unsafe car even though it got an overall acceptable rating??? Your post seems to defy logic.
So basically what you're saying is, who cares if it gets good ratings in other tests, and lets just focus on the test you're bent about? Then claiming they can't get it right and it is an unsafe car even though it got an overall acceptable rating??? Your post seems to defy logic.
Bit, I don't want to turn this into a political debate, but I'm not surprised that you are criticizing the IIHS and defending the government. The government's tests are a joke, and an old one at that. The IIHS tests are the most demanding out there, even more demanding than EuroNCAP (this applies especially to the side-impact).
Anyway, Ramon, I'll humor you. The E-Klasse and the Camry are about the same size and weight. In terms of automotive safety, this makes them directly comparable. So yes, it's apples to apples.
It's nice to see there are still plenty of members here who choose to talk out the sides of their mouths, totally disregard facts, and cannot form cohesive arguments. Oh, I suddenly remembered why I don't post here anymore...
11-01-06, 07:08 AM
#36
G=Good; A=Acceptable; M=Marginal; P=Poor
Can't edit my original post for some reasons.
---------------
from the same source
http://www.iihs.org/ratings/summary.aspx?class=10
You are barking at the 07 E for getting (A) acceptable rating for side impact when the 07 GS get (M) marginal rating for rear impact. The differrence between A & M can be life and death
Rating for rear impact of the GS is beyond embarrassing. A GS sells for close to $60K and cannot provide the type of protection found in $20K cars like the Hyundai sonata, Kia Optima or the Chevy Malibu..
This type of inferior passenger protection is not only limited to the GS, but ES as well. The GX and RX both get (P) Poor rating.. OMG I am shocked.. Lexus owes their customers more. Other companies seem to get it, why don’t they? There’s not much more I can say.
Can't edit my original post for some reasons.
---------------
from the same source
http://www.iihs.org/ratings/summary.aspx?class=10
You are barking at the 07 E for getting (A) acceptable rating for side impact when the 07 GS get (M) marginal rating for rear impact. The differrence between A & M can be life and death
Rating for rear impact of the GS is beyond embarrassing. A GS sells for close to $60K and cannot provide the type of protection found in $20K cars like the Hyundai sonata, Kia Optima or the Chevy Malibu..
This type of inferior passenger protection is not only limited to the GS, but ES as well. The GX and RX both get (P) Poor rating.. OMG I am shocked.. Lexus owes their customers more. Other companies seem to get it, why don’t they? There’s not much more I can say.
It is kind of silly argument - fact is both C and E class are very old vehicles by now and their safety is not up to latest generation models.
Extensive facelifts are still just facelifts. Tests have shown C and E class are just not up to the same level as new competition. Same goes for 5 series since it only got pretty poor 4 stars for its class, considering it is new vehicle (3 series got 5 stars, 1 series got 5 stars!!!).
It really has nothing to do with brand prefference, it just another fact of life. Another argument for buying new designs and another reason why new cars are heavier than older generation cars - they protect you better in crashes.
There is an reason manufacturers spend hundreds of millions for safety research and it shows in newer designs.
MB always cared about safety, and it is probably top german manufacturer when it comes to safety record. A class got great score in 2005, so did B class in 2006, although they are not class leaders in safety.
When we look back, out of European manufacturers, Renault has done the most in safety in past 5 years, especially considering their cars are pretty cheap. They are first manufacturer in europe to place strong emphasis on safety that has been proven in TESTS.
For Japanese cars, Toyota is an clear leader and safety has become priority in past 5-6 years as well. All Toyota cars in Europe are near or top of their class safety records (Aygo, Yaris, Prius, Avensis and Corolla Verso actually breaking those records when they were first introduced).
Honda on the other hand is nowhere close to as good - their 2007 Civic scoring ONLY 4 stars, which is poorest rating for new cars in EuroNCAP, in the class, in past 3-4 years. Not only that, but there is no way of easily disconnecting front airbag in 2007 Civic, which is unheard of for that class!!!
There is nothing really out of ordinary here for MB C and E class, as long as you understand that those cars are on the market for while and that facelift is just an facelift. IS and GS latest generation are a lot safer cars than previous gens, so is Rav4, Yaris, etc, etc.
If someone is interested in security, they can easily check ratings for car they are buying and factor that into their decision - thats why ratings are there!
11-01-06, 09:28 AM
#37
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Bit, I don't want to turn this into a political debate, but I'm not surprised that you are criticizing the IIHS and defending the government. The government's tests are a joke, and an old one at that. The IIHS tests are the most demanding out there, even more demanding than EuroNCAP (this applies especially to the side-impact).
Follow the money...
11-01-06, 09:30 AM
#38
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This whole thread seems way melodramatic and over the top. If you are so nitpicky that you absolutely NEED to have completely perfect crash test scores at every possible angle from every possible organization, then by all means go buy an Accord, Camry, or Ford Five Hundred. Just don't complain of your sheer boredom from driving those cars. The goal in automotive design is to give the cars good / solidly passing grades for crash tests but to not overly compromise the car in other areas. If BMW didn't care so much about body roll, cornering stability, driving dynamics, and their 50:50 weight dist principles, I bet they could have made their crash test results better. They probably wanted to keep the doors as light as possible to minimize the potential to roll, so that means keeping the beams in there as light or as small as they can get them without "overly compromising" side impact protection or whatever. But if they made it real beefy to get a better crash rating, then it wouldn't drive like it does. In some cars the whole point is absolute crash safety, but the end result is those cars end up being pretty darn boring. I've never heard anybody talk about how exciting their Ford Five Hundred (or Volvo S80) is to drive. If you want something as safe as a tank then don't complain when it drives like one. It's just impossible to make a car excel at everything all at once. Even if you don't think it should have to be that way, you ALWAYS have to give something to get something else. That's just how design and engineering work.
Even if you have your perfect 5-star everywhere flawless crash protected car, there's still no guarantee that you're going to live in a crash. You could still get clobbered and die from some idiot in a 6000 lb SUV running a red light at 60 mph from the cops. Or a load of freakin steel beams could suddenly roll off a truck and flatten your car and kill you (this happened in philly a few years back). Automotive deaths due to random acts of nature/God happen all the time, are tragic, and even the most over-engineered car will still not save you. Be careful the next time you drive under and overpass. It could just be getting ready to let go and kill you when it falls right on top of you. This just happened recently somewhere but I forget where. Any lawsuit based on something like that would be purely frivilous. If you want to be absolutely safe in a car then never get in one, and never go anywhere in one. Even then, you could always get HIT by one crossing the street, LOL.
Even if you have your perfect 5-star everywhere flawless crash protected car, there's still no guarantee that you're going to live in a crash. You could still get clobbered and die from some idiot in a 6000 lb SUV running a red light at 60 mph from the cops. Or a load of freakin steel beams could suddenly roll off a truck and flatten your car and kill you (this happened in philly a few years back). Automotive deaths due to random acts of nature/God happen all the time, are tragic, and even the most over-engineered car will still not save you. Be careful the next time you drive under and overpass. It could just be getting ready to let go and kill you when it falls right on top of you. This just happened recently somewhere but I forget where. Any lawsuit based on something like that would be purely frivilous. If you want to be absolutely safe in a car then never get in one, and never go anywhere in one. Even then, you could always get HIT by one crossing the street, LOL.
11-01-06, 10:09 AM
#39
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Just to show some of the subtleties of automotive design that most people would never even think of or realize, here's a real mind bender.
I always wondered why the Honda Pilot never had a moonroof available. It has one available now, but the original 2003 model didn't. Why not? Our Highlander did. I found the answer sometime last year. At least according to Honda, the reason for no moonroof was because it degraded the dynamics of the structure enough in a crash that it lowered the crash results enough that they didn't want to include one. They wanted the extra bit of margin from the solid roof to keep the crash protection a bit better. Amazing. I'm not a mechanical engineer so that never even would have occured to me. Of course, that's just what "Honda said" of which I'm normally skeptical because they're the spin masters, but I have no way of showing or proving otherwise so I'll just have to go with it and it sounds reasonable anyways.
Cars (and anything that you design for that matter) are filled with all sorts of intricacies like that, where one seemingly unrelated thing can have a huge impact on the performance of something else. This is not excusing the "poor" performance of the E-class (it didn't look all that bad to me), but everybody has different standards, and who knows what they were fighting against and trying not to trade off anymore than they had to. If you don't like the crash test ratings of the E-class or any car for that matter, then buy something else that's more to your liking. Vote with your wallet. It's that simple.
I always wondered why the Honda Pilot never had a moonroof available. It has one available now, but the original 2003 model didn't. Why not? Our Highlander did. I found the answer sometime last year. At least according to Honda, the reason for no moonroof was because it degraded the dynamics of the structure enough in a crash that it lowered the crash results enough that they didn't want to include one. They wanted the extra bit of margin from the solid roof to keep the crash protection a bit better. Amazing. I'm not a mechanical engineer so that never even would have occured to me. Of course, that's just what "Honda said" of which I'm normally skeptical because they're the spin masters, but I have no way of showing or proving otherwise so I'll just have to go with it and it sounds reasonable anyways.
Cars (and anything that you design for that matter) are filled with all sorts of intricacies like that, where one seemingly unrelated thing can have a huge impact on the performance of something else. This is not excusing the "poor" performance of the E-class (it didn't look all that bad to me), but everybody has different standards, and who knows what they were fighting against and trying not to trade off anymore than they had to. If you don't like the crash test ratings of the E-class or any car for that matter, then buy something else that's more to your liking. Vote with your wallet. It's that simple.
11-01-06, 10:10 AM
#40
Out of Warranty
I rather suspect that given the test specifications, the results of multiple crashes could vary considerably. A few percentage points one way or the other, given the low number of repeated tests would seem to be statistically insignificant. Factors of ten percent or more might have some validity in the real world, but it is really a hair-splitting contest. The real danger of standardized tests is that over time, cars can be engineered to pass the test without regard to actual field conditions.
MB is to be congratulated for actually sending crash analysts to the scene of accidents involving their vehicles to better understand the performance of their products in the real world rather than sit in an expensive laboratory and repeatedly slam a C-Klasse into a brick wall. That’s expensive but valuable research because it recognizes the fact that collisions incorporate a huge number of variables that cannot be reproduced in the sterile atmosphere of the lab. By painstaking review of accident scenes, and usually hauling what used to be a Benz to their facilities for dissection and examination, they are ensuring that their vehicles perform well where it counts – out on the highway.
MB is to be congratulated for actually sending crash analysts to the scene of accidents involving their vehicles to better understand the performance of their products in the real world rather than sit in an expensive laboratory and repeatedly slam a C-Klasse into a brick wall. That’s expensive but valuable research because it recognizes the fact that collisions incorporate a huge number of variables that cannot be reproduced in the sterile atmosphere of the lab. By painstaking review of accident scenes, and usually hauling what used to be a Benz to their facilities for dissection and examination, they are ensuring that their vehicles perform well where it counts – out on the highway.
11-01-06, 10:15 AM
#41
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Excellent post, Lil4X. Exactly, much of this seems to be "analysis paralysis", or "measurebation". And if a certain crash test or methodology isn't an accurate test of real world conditions, and manufacturers design just to pass the test, then you have a recipe for disaster. I'm sure if I looked it up on SAE.org, I could find a zillion research papers worth buying just on crash test methodology alone and application to real-world. There's probably even a bunch of textbooks you could buy on the topic if you're into that sort of thing.
11-01-06, 12:25 PM
#42
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I rather suspect that given the test specifications, the results of multiple crashes could vary considerably. A few percentage points one way or the other, given the low number of repeated tests would seem to be statistically insignificant. Factors of ten percent or more might have some validity in the real world, but it is really a hair-splitting contest. The real danger of standardized tests is that over time, cars can be engineered to pass the test without regard to actual field conditions.
MB is to be congratulated for actually sending crash analysts to the scene of accidents involving their vehicles to better understand the performance of their products in the real world rather than sit in an expensive laboratory and repeatedly slam a C-Klasse into a brick wall. That’s expensive but valuable research because it recognizes the fact that collisions incorporate a huge number of variables that cannot be reproduced in the sterile atmosphere of the lab. By painstaking review of accident scenes, and usually hauling what used to be a Benz to their facilities for dissection and examination, they are ensuring that their vehicles perform well where it counts – out on the highway.
MB is to be congratulated for actually sending crash analysts to the scene of accidents involving their vehicles to better understand the performance of their products in the real world rather than sit in an expensive laboratory and repeatedly slam a C-Klasse into a brick wall. That’s expensive but valuable research because it recognizes the fact that collisions incorporate a huge number of variables that cannot be reproduced in the sterile atmosphere of the lab. By painstaking review of accident scenes, and usually hauling what used to be a Benz to their facilities for dissection and examination, they are ensuring that their vehicles perform well where it counts – out on the highway.
11-01-06, 05:49 PM
#44
I rather suspect that given the test specifications, the results of multiple crashes could vary considerably. A few percentage points one way or the other, given the low number of repeated tests would seem to be statistically insignificant. Factors of ten percent or more might have some validity in the real world, but it is really a hair-splitting contest. The real danger of standardized tests is that over time, cars can be engineered to pass the test without regard to actual field conditions.
MB is to be congratulated for actually sending crash analysts to the scene of accidents involving their vehicles to better understand the performance of their products in the real world rather than sit in an expensive laboratory and repeatedly slam a C-Klasse into a brick wall. That’s expensive but valuable research because it recognizes the fact that collisions incorporate a huge number of variables that cannot be reproduced in the sterile atmosphere of the lab. By painstaking review of accident scenes, and usually hauling what used to be a Benz to their facilities for dissection and examination, they are ensuring that their vehicles perform well where it counts – out on the highway.
MB is to be congratulated for actually sending crash analysts to the scene of accidents involving their vehicles to better understand the performance of their products in the real world rather than sit in an expensive laboratory and repeatedly slam a C-Klasse into a brick wall. That’s expensive but valuable research because it recognizes the fact that collisions incorporate a huge number of variables that cannot be reproduced in the sterile atmosphere of the lab. By painstaking review of accident scenes, and usually hauling what used to be a Benz to their facilities for dissection and examination, they are ensuring that their vehicles perform well where it counts – out on the highway.
:-)
If you are trying to suggest that car that does worse in frontal offset impact test will do better in real life test than car that did better in tests - that makes no sense, whatsoever.
11-01-06, 05:52 PM
#45
Just to show some of the subtleties of automotive design that most people would never even think of or realize, here's a real mind bender.
I always wondered why the Honda Pilot never had a moonroof available. It has one available now, but the original 2003 model didn't. Why not? Our Highlander did. I found the answer sometime last year. At least according to Honda, the reason for no moonroof was because it degraded the dynamics of the structure enough in a crash that it lowered the crash results enough that they didn't want to include one. They wanted the extra bit of margin from the solid roof to keep the crash protection a bit better. Amazing. I'm not a mechanical engineer so that never even would have occured to me. Of course, that's just what "Honda said" of which I'm normally skeptical because they're the spin masters, but I have no way of showing or proving otherwise so I'll just have to go with it and it sounds reasonable anyways.
Cars (and anything that you design for that matter) are filled with all sorts of intricacies like that, where one seemingly unrelated thing can have a huge impact on the performance of something else. This is not excusing the "poor" performance of the E-class (it didn't look all that bad to me), but everybody has different standards, and who knows what they were fighting against and trying not to trade off anymore than they had to. If you don't like the crash test ratings of the E-class or any car for that matter, then buy something else that's more to your liking. Vote with your wallet. It's that simple.
I always wondered why the Honda Pilot never had a moonroof available. It has one available now, but the original 2003 model didn't. Why not? Our Highlander did. I found the answer sometime last year. At least according to Honda, the reason for no moonroof was because it degraded the dynamics of the structure enough in a crash that it lowered the crash results enough that they didn't want to include one. They wanted the extra bit of margin from the solid roof to keep the crash protection a bit better. Amazing. I'm not a mechanical engineer so that never even would have occured to me. Of course, that's just what "Honda said" of which I'm normally skeptical because they're the spin masters, but I have no way of showing or proving otherwise so I'll just have to go with it and it sounds reasonable anyways.
Cars (and anything that you design for that matter) are filled with all sorts of intricacies like that, where one seemingly unrelated thing can have a huge impact on the performance of something else. This is not excusing the "poor" performance of the E-class (it didn't look all that bad to me), but everybody has different standards, and who knows what they were fighting against and trying not to trade off anymore than they had to. If you don't like the crash test ratings of the E-class or any car for that matter, then buy something else that's more to your liking. Vote with your wallet. It's that simple.
Both C and E class have decent protection, just not top of their class anymore.
Difference is not always marginal, where top car will leave you with bruise, bad car might get you to spend long time in hospital.