Hoovey689

iTrader: (16)

Good for Honda. Glad to see the Fusion up there. I'm still a big Mazda6 fan despite its midpack performance

pman6

this won't hurt toyota, but it might give Honda something to brag about and increase sales.

But damn, that Prius.
What you save in gas, you pay for in leg amputation. hah

LexFather

The 2013 Prius
"Save gas, not lives"

I keed I keed

bitkahuna

iTrader: (20)

but think of the weight saving and increased fuel economy.

84Cressida

Honda certainly has a lot to be proud of, but even they made changes to the 2013 Civic after seeing the first test with the luxury cars, so even they are not alone in being off guard. Toyota no doubt will make changes to their cars and quick. The 2011 Camry, the very last year for the Gen 6, had changes that bumped it to a 3 star vehicle under the new tests to a 4 star, and that was a car that was to end production less than a year after that occured.

mmarshall

One thing that seems to be overlooked, in the constant Toyota-vs.-Honda harping in this thread (I'm not going to get involved in that argument), is that, although the DOT/NHTSA and IIHS tests may be a uniform set-standard to make crash-test evaluations from one car to another, relatively few accidents in real life happen exactly the way that they are pre-programmed in the lab. In these lab tests, dummies and mannequins are placed in the seats, they don't move at all, they are all belted in exactly as recommended, the seats are all in the same position relative to the dash/steering wheel, the headrests are all properly-snug on the backs of the necks, the G-force/impact sensors are all attached to the dummies in the same spots, the dummies are all staring straight ahead and are not distracted by things like texting, cell-phones, road-rage, fiddling with complex dash controls. etc...and, of course, the crashes are all at the same speeds and into the same barriers at the same angles.

So........what does that tell us? Although, of course, uniform/fixed test-results like this are admittedly better than nothing as an indicator of crash-survival and injury-rate, they may or may not (in most cases, probably not) give an idea of what will actually happen in real-life crashes.

Of course, for obvious reasons, dummies, rather then humans, have to be used for these tests. But my point is that dummies, which just sit there and stare ahead and have everything about them carefully pre-programmed, aren't necessarily a good indication of will happen to humans in a major accident.

GSteg

iTrader: (15)

That's not true. Everyone here knows most Hondas get bashed for controversial design, poor mpg, lack of feature, and more. A simple search will yield a bunch of posts. Not that I disagree with any of it because Honda deserves some of the hate for putting out subpar vehicles (CRZ, ZDX, etc). If anything, Honda is the laughing stock on the internet

bitkahuna

iTrader: (20)

and no one here in this thread was beating up on the camry, and no one just "reads here and the internetz" and everyone knows how fabulously successful the camry is, so need for the false straw man arguments.

take it elsewhere, there's no hating or trolling here. quit seeing things that aren't there.

fair enough - there's been no argument in this thread.

ok, now who's doing the hating - that's an absurd comment. all engineering by every car maker (and actually in every facet of life) has trade-offs of cost, reliability, features, etc.

fair point! this IIHS is clearly corrupt, and self-serving, as i've said for years. something to consider - the insurance industry does not want safe vehicles or it would have no business!

agreed! and where honda has been ripped, it's almost all deserved!

TRDFantasy

Good points from you as always .

That's why researching how different models and brands hold up in real world crashes is important.

I wasn't talking about all those factors necessarily; in some situations Honda does not excel safety-wise but rarely is that mentioned. For example there are some Honda models that have done poorly in IIHS roof-crush strength tests, and Honda models are also well known for not having the strongest braking performance in repeated stop testing.

In some cases yes Honda is/was a laughing stock in many places. But, even so, a lot of auto journalists have a bias for Honda, and a lot of auto websites also are biased towards Honda, even when looking at their mediocre models. Auto websites, journalists, random forum posters ... all love to hate on Toyota for the smallest of reasons, most of which are undeserved.

Plus we have Honda supporters here on a Lexus forum coming out of the woodwork all of a sudden, as quickly as the Infiniti and Hyundai supporters seem to appear here on CL. They disappear just as quickly too.

My informed opinion after many years of experience with Honda vehicles, and having numerous conversations with mechanics and actual mechanical engineers. I'm not talking about tradeoffs here. I'm talking about the engineering philosophy and the engineering perspective that Honda has.

You can disagree, but that won't change my opinion.

newr

That is a bunch of mumble jumble nonsense! So do you have a better way of doing it without involving a human being to see the real injuries? Few accidents in real life happen exactly the way that they are in the lab? Really? Frontal, rear and side impacts in real life are rare? I agree this new one is but which car would you rather be in IF it DOES happen like the way they tested? Thanks to IIHS and NHTSA for tests like this, car manufacures will take notes and implement changes to make them safer.

mmarshall

Your opinion noted. But, unfortunately, lab-tests aren't always a reliable judge of real-life crash-tests. However, if you had read what I said closely before attacking it, you would have noted that I did point out that the tests are better than nothing, and give at least a linear-comparison from vehicle to vehicle on the specific (and exact) type of accident they do recreate.

Me personally, no, but, as others have pointed out, that's what insurance companies do (besides the IIHS tests, of course). They base their premiums on what they actually have to pay out for vehicle-damage and medical-costs in real-life accidents with real-life people.


Yes and no. These types of accidents are, as you note, common. But the characteristics of each individual accident, for reasons I noted above, are usually different. Take rear-enders, for instance. ...and say you're in a typical famly-sedan like in this specific thread/test. There's a big difference between getting rear-ended by a Fiat 500 and getting rear-ended by a Chevy/GMC Suburban....and, on top of that, the head-rest may not be in the same position both times either, protecting you from whiplash. Or, in a front-end accident, between hitting a tree/pole and hitting a brick wall. Or, even hitting that brick wall with your front-end at different angles. All I'm saying is that there are a lot of variables that tests like this can't necessarily address. But, unfortunately, that's all we have outside of real accidents....and, as you note, there's not much else we can do without real people and/or more testing-variables.

Hard to say which specific car is best for all (or most) situations. But, if I had to make a single across-the-board choice for overall safety, it would probably be the Mercedes S-class.......with a Volvo S80 second. Both vehicles (and companies) have generally a well-deserved reputation for crash-safety. The S-Class, though, especially, is a lot of money, and, though a human life is priceless, sometimes, when buying a vehicle, one must weigh in both the safety and cost-factor against what he or she is actually able to fit into his or her budget. For those who can't afford high-dollar cars, Subaru designs in a lot of safety for the low-to-moderate prices they charge.


Yes, in the specific tests, car makers can, and sometimes do, improve their results with modifications and redesigns. But, again, in real life, there are many different factors involved.

doublehh03

Only takes this guy to make it into a this v. that argument

Fizzboy7

This news is silly and yellow journalism. The chances of hitting something small and off to the front corner of a car are far slimmer than hitting another car or larger object head-on. This new test represents a rare event, but as usual the media is headlining the story w/o explaining any of that and making it sound like these cars are failing and dangerous. 95% of everyone is getting misled here and I'm disappointed those in this forum are as well. Stick to the original tests the IIHS does and that more accurately represents real world crash scenarios.

bitkahuna

iTrader: (20)

how do you really feel?

maybe so, but that doesn't mean the test is worthless. plus, i was thinking about changes in driving habits, things like people texting or tweeting, etc., while driving, and that can lead to people simply 'drifting' in which case they very much could just 'clip' something on one side or the other. of course, flying straight into the back of something is also possible - this just happened to someone i know (they were hit) - the driver behind them seemed to now slow at all.

bitkahuna

iTrader: (20)

ok enough calling out - you did say the accord is easily winning the segment, which is definitely a stretch.