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- Denver, CO
2017 Mazda CX-5 wins IIHS 2017 Top Safety Pick + Award!
- Thread starter Dr Kev
- Start date
I was hoping you had some insider info on them since you seem to know a lot about the NHTSA. I don't get what you mean by "low" 5 stars or "low" 4 stars. I mean it just doesn't make sense to me. If they didn't get 5 stars, they should get 4 stars. If they didn't get 4 stars, instead of a "low" 4 stars result, they should give them 3 stars.
Whether or not they get preferential treatment , we'll never know. It is a government agency though, so it is not "impossible" for some manufacturers to have some pull on them. I'm not saying that's what happened here, just that the results are weird to me.
I understand that more stars mean better safety. However when you have a car like the CRV that gets 5 star overall rating while acing all the safety tests, I do not understand how other cars can get 5 star overall rating while not acing all the other tests. I understand the new CX-5 didn't score perfect on some side crash tests and earned a 4 star rating. It did score perfect on the frontal crash tests. By that logic, no other car that didn't ace all the tests should have gotten a 5 star overall rating. I think their criteria for a 5 star overall rating needs to be explained a little more to consumers. I'll leave it at that.
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- Denver, CO
(iagree)
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- Plano, Texas, USA
I agree those 5-star rating system sometimes is confusing. We have different statement from NHTSA that you can compare stars on any vehicles after 2011 MY as long as they're in the same class, but othet wording yet implies you can't because it awards stars based on relative performance to other vehicles in that class for each year.
There's something called variance. Since analyzing car crash data is complicated, it's hard to rate it with only 5 levels. Among all vehicles with 5 stars they still have different level or area of weakness, as we all know even perfectly scored 2017 Honda CR-V can't guarantee your safety during a major crash. But if a vehicle can score high under all different safety ratings including NHTSA、IIHS、Euro NCAP、ANCAP、JNCAP, which means it's been designed to the different test better than others under different kind of test criteria and the vehicle is probably safer than others during a major crash since it has been crash tested under all possible ways we can think of. That's why we want our CX-5 getting the top rating in all crash tests, not just in IIHS and ANCAP.
I'll still say remember our 2015 CX-5 which had 5 stars on every category from NHTSA except rollover, and I actually used that rating to persuade a couple of friends and family purchased 2016 CX-5 before the NHTSA safety rating was released including us. I felt I got cheated by Mazda as I fully believe some engineers definitely screwed something up related to safety on front passenger side for 2016 CX-5 which caused a big drop from 5 to 3 stars and to 4 stars overall. The Special Service Program SSP A6 for 2016 CX-5 to adjust the programming of front passenger airbag is an evidence to me something had changed for 2016 CX-5 on front passenger safety design and now Mazda is trying to fix it. The other thing is Mazda has fixed whatever the issues were in 2016 CX-5 and made all 5-stars in all frontal crash categories for its 2017 CX-5 just like 2015, but again they apparently overlooked something on safety for side crash which caused poorer scores in Side Crash Passenger Side and Combined Rear Seat Rating.
After all, NHTSA safety rating is "the government’s safety regulator, which tends to have more lax standards of vehicle safety." It should be easier for car manufactures designing "to the test" to get better scores.
And most of them did.
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- Plano, Texas, USA
NHTSA does release crash data if you know how to find and analyze tbem. Several had compared those raw data between 2015 (if I remember correctly the 2015 crash data actually is from a 2014 CX-5 crash test) and 2016 CX-5's trying to figure out why the big drop on rating. But those people are no longer active here.
I put a lot more weight into the IIHS ratings than the NHTSA. For one thing the IIHS represents insurance companies who are very motivated to improve vehicle safety (lowering what they have to pay out). Also, if you look at the things they test they're more stringent. Also, they actually explain exactly what happened and provide a lot more detail. Something that's curious would be comparing the Ford Escape and the CX-5. The Escape would look safer on the NHTSA rating whereas on the IIHS rating the CX-5 looks safer. Which is true? I would tend to argue that there are probably some specific scenarios that could end up safer on each. However, of the types of accidents that result in payouts that drive the IIHS testing the CX-5 does look like a safer bet. For us the Escape was the last contender vs CX-5. What ultimately won me over was 1. I expected CX-5 to do better in small overlap which it did. 2. The collision prevention was better (and this is a huge one IMO) The rest of the reasons weren't really safety related. But I did find it odd that it was easy to find plenty of Escapes on the lot that would park themselves but very few that would maintain a set distance from the car in front of you. I certainly think I'll use the radar cruise way more than having the car parallel park for me but I digress.
A very underrated feature - one of my favorites.
I'm also wondering about the Collision avoidance. I wonder if it wasn't able to fully stop the car, or if the warning came on too late, etc. Either way - as you mentioned - it certainly works in the car.
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Give it time. Soon it will be standard fitment to all vehicles
They said it avoided the 25 mph and 12 mph collisions. It was the alert they missed a point on which is strange. Usually the basic is just the alert and the avoidance is harder.
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123373
Lookie here
Volvo Is No Longer The Safest Automaker - CarBuzz
https://apple.news/ArYvBafutT3yGYot2mXWOAA
Volvo Is No Longer The Safest Automaker - CarBuzz
https://apple.news/ArYvBafutT3yGYot2mXWOAA
Mazda is on a tear for sure.
I wonder if we'll see a small recall for a software recalibration for the forward collision alert. It's odd that the CX-9 and CX-3 scores max points as I bet all three vehicles have the same setup as far as that's concerned. And it avoided both collisions.
I'm betting it just wasn't aggressive enough for them. That could be annoying for us. My buddies Subaru goes off in a lot of situations where it shouldn't in my opinion. Ive read reviews of the CR-V as well saying it is too sensitive. People just end up ignoring it like the boy who cried wolf.
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I wonder if we'll see a small recall for a software recalibration for the forward collision alert. It's odd that the CX-9 and CX-3 scores max points as I bet all three vehicles have the same setup as far as that's concerned. And it avoided both collisions.
I'm betting it just wasn't aggressive enough for them. That could be annoying for us. My buddies Subaru goes off in a lot of situations where it shouldn't in my opinion. Ive read reviews of the CR-V as well saying it is too sensitive. People just end up ignoring it like the boy who cried wolf.
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- NE Indiana
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- '16 CX-5 GT FWD
Here's a link for those who don't have Apple News: http://www.carbuzz.com/news/2017/7/15/Volvo-Is-No-Longer-The-Safest-Automaker-7740116/
