4 Star Government Safety Ratings- Will it impact sales?

I was a bit skeptical about buying a car without crash results but decided to do so because of Toyota's good records of safety. Yes, I'm a bit disappointed, but the results are not too bad.

 

Your link points to a 2004 Toyota Sienna.

 

Yes and Yes.

 

Yes, I am disappointed. 5-star ratings are not difficult to achieve. I think Toyota screwed up or just didn't care. In that it's not necessarily a family vehicle, they may have simply not had that as a priority, as has been the case with various sports cars, pickups, etc. Even so, you still see many of those types of cars and econo cars get 5-star ratings.

No, a 4-star rating would not likely have influenced the decision, as fuel economy was a bigger concern. So, perhaps I'm a good example of why Toyota might not have invested extra money or effort to go for a top rating. Had it been a 3-star rating, I might have considered spending a bit more for a hybrid Fusion, Camry or Altima...

 

Although the 4 Star rating seems a bit disappointing, I am still confident of the car and it's safety experience and features that help to keep us as drivers safe. I think Toyota could have strived for 5 but again, 4 is damn good in my opinion.

All things are relevant though, and in Normal driving I still feel safe and the 4 factor doesn't dismay my interest or love of the vehicle.

As someone said recently here, there was a bad accident in which the driver was killed by an Semi which crossed over a line in the road, and the car hit on impact was rated a "5". The driver died in that crash, so would he have been less safe with a "4" rating for that vehicle? I think not.

 

Maybe less painful death.

 

The European NCAP is a 5-star rating: Euro NCAP - For safer cars | Toyota Prius

 

FWIW, '09 Prius had the same star ratings, however looking at the numerical sub-categories the '10 is generally improved but not in all cases. I don't know that the indivdual scores can be reliably duplicated in successive tests, so that may not be siginificant. 4 stars is fine with me, 5 on driver side.

 

As a side note, the European frontal crash test is similar to the offset test done by the IIHS, rather than the full width one done in the NHTSA NCAP test. The Euro rating is a comprehensive one though, based on various tests.

There is more discussion of the crash test results here-

http://priuschat.com/forums/gen-iii...dering-about-2010-prius-govt-crash-tests.html

The side impact results are now posted, too.

 

They change the criteria to keep the tests meaningful with ever improving cars, so it is hard to compare tests. IIRC they increased the crash speeds at one point. The Gen II test still had stars for the subcategories. Now they get a % score per subcategory, which allows for a much better comparison than stars.

The Prius did get 4 stars, but was it 4.9? Other cars got 5 stars, but were those 5.1?

 

I'm not sure about EuroNCAP, but I do not think the NHTSA has updated their criteria in recent years. The NHTSA tests are getting a major update for 2011, though.

That is a good point about being near the threshold from 4 to 5 stars. I don't know how close the 2010 Prius is to 5-star thresholds, but in eyeballing results from many other cars, I am certain all the 4-star ratings are closer to 5-star ratings than they are to 3-star ratings. I outlined the numbers that kept them from a better rating in the other thread.

 

I think we're overstating this. The new Prius is safer than cars 10, 20, 30 and so on years ago and undoubtedly safer than the clunkers that many of you got rid of.

 

Apart from the % scord, the new NCAP test has 4 subcategories instead of 3. However, you are correct that the tests themselves did not change.

From the NCAP site:

The underlying dynamic tests are identical to those before 2009, except for the addition of a test for Whiplash neck injury protection in rear impact. Also, Euro NCAP now rewards not only Seatbelt reminders, but also Speed Limiters and the standard fitment of Electronic Stability Control.

 

Very true, but no harm in nitpicking. There are no 3-star or worse ratings, so no real safety concerns regarding the crash protection. The IIHS Top Safety Pick award is certainly a good set of results, too.

 

Or was it a 4.1? While a middle 5-star rating in the frontal crash test means that there would be a 5% chance of serious injury, a middle 4-star rating raises that to 15%. I don't view that likely triple chance to be trivial. I guess view the star ratings like grad school grades, where almost no one gets less than a C unless they really go out of their way. That would make 4 stars an average grade; not bad, just average.

I also recognize that the Pre-Collision System on the Prius V is not part of the test and in use may help lessen the chance of injury. But I guess I have to try to realize that Toyota has invested the money in the hybrid system and not so much in the physical structure. After all, if you could buy a non-hybrid Prius I would expect its base MSRP to be well under $15k. In that case, for just a little more money you could buy a Matrix, which has a better rating despite weighing less.

For a car that Toyota really seems to highlight as being its most advanced model, they must also be disappointed.

 

For those considering a Prius vs another hybrid, the main question probably should be vehicle size rather than the numerical ratings, because size matters a lot in collisions with other vehicles.

My wife and I recently ordered a FFH largely because it's larger than a Prius.

What's really sad about this is that in a perfect world, I'd prefer to drive a small car, but then I came across the IIHS's size study: http://www.iihs.org/externaldata/srdata/docs/sr4404.pdf

And with all of the enormous SUVs roaming around both my wife and I felt that we (and especially our 1 year old daughter) would be safer in the Fusion. The worst part of this is that I recognize that buying the larger car, while making us safer, makes other people slightly less safe in the event that we collide with them.

Also, there are of course limits to our willingness to buy a big car -- because of our concern about the environment we aren't going to race out and buy an enormous vehicle simply for the safety benefits. But at the margin, our desire to be safer did make the difference between buying a Prius and a lower-MPG FFH.

Seeing the government's star ratings doesn't change my opinion much, because I bet the Gen 3 Prius is pretty close to 5 star territory.

 

Test repeatability is a very good point. Maybe if someone is dissapointed enough with the 4 rating, they will donate their car for a repeat test to see if we get all 5s the second time around.

 

Sure, but how likely are you to hit another car head-on? It probably depends on where you drive, but for me the most likely scenario is sliding into something due to wet/icy roads.

In the cases I'm thinking of, I'm not sure that a big vehicle would be better than a small vehicle. For example, a small car should come to a quick stop upon hitting a guardrail (without serious injury) whereas a big car or SUV might be inclined to go through or over the guardrail into oncoming traffic (never a good idea).

I only had a little interest in the Fusion Hybrid myself, but I'm planning on revisiting it. It seems like a quality car and it sounds like you are happy with it.