A note about safety ratings
I posted an article in snippets yesterday and referred to the Saab 9-7x’s safety rating as being less than that of its Saab siblings. This reference seemed to cause a stir in comments, so I’d like to set the record straight.
Was I having a crack at the 9-7x?
Not at all. I was merely observing a documented fact, that the 9-7x doesn’t rate as highly as the Saab 9-3 or Saab 9-5 amongst safety tests conducted by various institutions.
The accident concerned was quite serious, involving the 9-7x flying 40 feet into a river, and yet the driver had only a cut hand as a result. As was mentioned by a commenter to the piece, that’s a real world safety result that you can’t ignore.
How does the Saab 9-7x rate in safety terms compared with other Saabs?
The IIHS gave the 9-7x an “average” rating for frontal offset crash protection, and a “marginal” rating for side impact protection.
The Saab 9-3 received a “good” rating for both tests and is rated as a Top Safety Pick by the IIHS.
The Saab 9-5 received a “good” rating for frontal offset crash protection and an “acceptable” rating for side impact, primarily due to the car not being updated for some airbag systems that have become common since the 9-5 was first designed.
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IIHS ratings come in four flavours.
From best to worst they are Good, Acceptable, Marginal and Poor.
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The Saab 9-5 is still rated as a five star vehicle for passenger safety by Euro NCAP, as is the Saab 9-3. There are no EuroNCAP results for the Saab 9-7x.
Swedish insurer, Folksam, also rates the Saab 9-5 and Saab 9-3 very highly for safety, as covered in an article on this site back on February 18.
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I’m as big a fan of the 9-7x as anyone and I’ve written about the car in very positive terms. I’ve taken a bit of flack for it too, on occasions.
I wasn’t have a go at the vehicle and I’m very, very pleased that the lady in the 9-7x escaped what looks like a very scary experience with so few injuries.
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Swade
I dont care if it was a Tata Nano (ROFL!) or a Chevy Suburban. Any car that could fly 40 feet and land in water, a river at that, and not injure anyone seriously is BY FAR a BEST SAFETY PICK in MY book. Who really conducts these tests anyway? Not to say they aren”t believable, but it just makes me wonder.
The 9-5 WAS a crazy nice vehicle to have, safety wise. But lets look before that shall we?
Before that Swade, what did the 9-5 get for a frontal crash test 1999-2001?
Acceptable.
Now Im not ragging on the car AT ALL, but I will say that if Saab was about safety the way they say they were, then they would have tried harder to get that ‘G’ from the iihs.
The 9-7x got an Average rating, which isnt BAD, but it just isnt as safe as previous cars. I just think that the car is NATURALLY safer being it is an SUV.
I just want to know the increments that these people use to come up with these scores thats all. I think it is SILLY that they rate some cars based off of technology and a stupid plastic dummy doll that weighs ~140Ibs that is supposed to represent a REAL human.
I have to say though, that the 9-7x should have had SAHR. oh, and those extra special side beams that the 9-3/5 have. but honestly, that is all I could think of negative based.
Tell me this everyone:
What test is supposed to measure vehicles that are airborne? like this 9-7x was? Thats right. None
THAT is the reason this is a Top Safety pick in MY book. Thats why I think the 9-5 would have NEVER survived such a landing.
I agree that the 9-7x has some queer styling issues and such, and isnt a “real” saab (whatever THAT means) but I have to say, that there are jobs only for Cars, and Only for SUVs. and this one was for an SUVs job.
Not upset, but I think it would be more accurate if they actually did these types of tests. tests for every circumstance. and with real people (who would sign up for that, lol).
Merry Christmas :]
I seem to remember that Saab uses reinforced pillars in their cars that far exceed the requirements of various crash-testing bodies. A Saab car won’t just survive a rollover, it’ll survive being dropped onto its roof from considerable height. I’m guessing that 9-7X in the crash pictures was lucky enough to have landed wheels-down in that river, which likely cushioned A LOT of the impact.
I agree with all though that the driver should not have been complaining about a cut hand. With an accident like that they should be thankful to be alive to complain about the cut. Someone should have informed him/her that because the Saab had the key in the center console they can be thankful their knee is intact!
Gripen,
those reinforced beams seem to be a bunch of hogwash, and dont do much at all.
according to iihs’s website, the 9-5 still got acceptable in the side impact score. Im not sure if that was because of an absence of side curtain airbags or what. but the car in the picture sure didnt block that much force from intruding the cabin. Besides, the safety cage only got MARGINAL in the side tests.
now as for the 9-3, that car is indestructible. :]
I imagine Lance will be along overnight to school you a little on those hogwash reinforcement beams…..
Yes, the 9-5’s lower rating today is a result of not having all the airbags it’s competition does. With the IIHS, there’s certain ratings that a car cannot achieve if it doesn’t have certain equipment. The latest one is stability control. you can’t get Best Pick status without it, regardless of your crash ratings.
Real world ratings systems like Folksam in sweden rate the 9-5 very highly, as shown at the link in the text.
I’m not sure why you feel the compulsion to pull the 9-5 down in order to make your case for the 9-7x. The SUV protected it’s occupant well in this instance, which is fantastic. Nobody’s complaining about it.
Ronald: I’m not talking about any “side impact” stuff. I’m talking about the pillars which hold-up the roof.
Nope, there is absolutely no comparison in crash safety between the 9-5 and 9-7x. In 1998 when the 9-5 was first released it had the best crash rating of any car on the market, period. It was the high water mark by which all new sedans were measured in terms of safety, and it debuted all sorts of new features like the anti-whiplash headrests. The face that even now, as a ten year old car the 9-5 still has some of the best crash ratings in it’s class is a testament to just how well that car performed in terms of safety.
The 9-7x on the other hand, even when it was brand new it was at the bottom of it’s class in terms of crash protection. The other premium SUV’s like the Touareg, MDX, Cayenne, X5, LR3, XC90, FX, and RX all have far superior crash ratings, and even some SUV’s and CUV’s from “volume” brands like Toyota, Honda, Subaru, and even Ford have better crash ratings than the 9-7x’s paltry ratings.
Saab is a brand that has staked much of it’s reputation on safety and excellent crash performance, and it’s inexcusable that their SUV scores “marginal” in ANY category, especially when the ancient 9-5 still has such excellent ratings given it’s age.
The 9-7x is a disgrace no matter how you look at it in any way other than the fact that it lures a small trickle of buyers into the dealerships.
The 40 foot fall into a river means nothing, I work as an EMT and I’ve seen people driving absolute shitboxes walk away from similar accidents, and I lost my brother in a 30mph side impact in a 2001 Volvo Cross Country.
You can’t go by individual examples when you’re trying to determine how “safe” a vehicle is, instead you have to tally up the statistics. That’s what the crash tests are for, to determine statistically which vehicles are more likely to protect you in the incident of a crash, and while they aren’t perfect they are still the most valid judge of a vehicle’s safety that’s out there.
Under the most objective of testing environments, the 9-7x shows clearly inferior crash performance compared to the rest of the Saab lineup, and more importantly compared to the rest of it’s SUV and CUV competition.
For such a safety-oriented brand as Saab, whose buyers frequently choose to buy Saabs based on crash performance, that kind of meager crash performance is sales suicide plain and simple.
A brave and worthwhile contribution, Alex. Sincere thanks.
Well, the car (truck) landed in water which would have helped decelerate the mass at a more gradual rate and helped insure the safety of the occupant so that is something to take in consideration for this particular crash. Think about when you jump in a pool and do a ‘cannonball’ – you decelerate due to the resistance of your mass and the shape of your body.
I am unsure if the ‘pillars’ on the 9-7x could support its 4700 pound curb weight – but that would also be something that might have relate to the speed of a crash.
You really have to look at how the specific vehicle absorbs the force of an impact as it de-forms and distributes that impact through its mass when talking a hit in terms of whether or not the occupant will get hurt.
If that 9-7 would have landed on hard pavement instead of the water the vehicle may have decelerated so fast that occupant may not have been able to withstand the force of the deceleration. Think spinal compression etc. There may have been very little physical damage to the vehicle – however the occupant would not have survived such a hard landing.
It is entirely conceivable that a 9-5 would have sustained more physical damage during that crash yet still absorbed the force of the impact in such a way as to protect the occupant as the 9-7 and the same result would have occurred: The driver survives the crash.
Crash test dummies generally represent the median of the population, and just like with ‘real’ people it is impossible to predict every variable during a crash. They simply provide engineers with data to make vehicles safer.
I’m not sure if the BMW X3 is one of the cars that 9-4X will go up against, but saw today that the X3 only managed 4 stars in the latest Euro-NCAP test.