]Well obviously from the poor ratings of a subcompact is this article I would go with the Lexus LS430.
If you expand to a Civic or Mazda3 that aced the test, I'll go with those over the Lexus.
Wow..you've bought into the hysteria, eh?
So if there's 2 cars, one an LS430 and one a Civic and someone says "We are going to crash these cars head on into each other. Pick one" You're taking the Civic?
Wow....that's just insane.
Who says it has to be only headon?
Since we are talking about small overlap, why don't we compare it there?
How about side impact? I can't find data on IIHS about how safe it is from the side.
That's why I would choose the Civic. In a T-bone collision I know that the Civic fares well but unsure about how well the LS does (does it even have side airbags). We are not just talking about head-on-head.
The LS has side airbags, side curtain airbags,
and knee airbags. It has more airbags than a Civic.
And it doesn't matter if we're talking front, side or offset front. You've just listened to the hysteria without doing your own homework and understanding all the data. Go read ALL of the data. One of the single most important factors in determining who "wins" in a wreck is weight. The NHTSA points this out many times in their data for all of their crash methodology. Even a Civic or Mazda 3 that has aced the new test would lose to an LS430....terribly. In any crash. Even a car with a mere 300kg difference in weight suffers drastically more damage. And 600kg difference is off the charts (almost). Both the new Civic and Mazda3 fall into that ~600kg weight difference.
Look at these charts and the damage to either car. The lighter car being the Civic or Mazda3 vs. something the weight of an LS430. The difference in damage is dramatic. And this at a mere 56 km/h. Are you still sure you'd pick either of those over a Lexus LS430? As I've been saying since the NHTSA has ramped up their rhetoric on these crash tests...there is MUCH more at play than a vehicle "acing" a test or getting a good recommendation. You have to look at the data in its entirety, along with frequency of crashes they are testing for, the probability of it occurring, and quite importantly....weight of the car.
This chart reflects the weight of an LS430 vs. a Civic or Mazda3Look at the vehicle deformation. Which car would you rather be in?