No surprise a GM product performed the worst, and that GM blamed everyone but themselves for their abysmal quality. They’ve never cared about safety until they are shamed for it.
I owned a very used 1997 LS400 a few years back. Probably the best car I've ever owned. Even with high miles I could still sense the high quality of the car.
My family had one from 2000 to 2015,and the only mechanic issue that it has experienced for 15 years was the over heated water temperature when we left the car at a water park for 2 hours. at the time the outside temperature was about 40 degrees
Yes. But we still have a ways to go before we actually pull sufficiently far enough ahead in this matter. People drive faster than ever today and these are 40mph offset crashes. even with todays cars in crashes of this type at 55 mph or more you’re almost always dead roughly speaking… and on those two lane highways crashes like that happen all the time. Deaths plummeted between the 1990s and the mid 2010s but started creeping up again in recent years with faster speed limits which offset much of the progress made during these years
@@WeekendsOutsideFL Science has its limits. Cars have reached the climax of safety since the mid 2000s. Even earlier for the moderate overlap crash-test. You simply can not expect to crash your sedan at 70 mph head into a e.g. similar car (mass and thoughness) and survive.
@@legioner9 they certainly do reach a climax of safety, though I observe this plateau was more so reached around 2017 due to fine tuning of otherwise peaked safety design, if you don’t count automation control (computerized crash avoidance). But you’d be very accurate if you said 85 per cent of safety features was reached by 2005. It’s just that economy vehicles had not adopted things like side airbags and better safety cages until the late 2000s to 2010s. Think crappy 2006 Chevy cavalier. But by now I’m convinced by now we’ve definitely done most of what can be practically implemented in terms of laws of physics. From here it’s automation in crash avoidance. There may be yet-to-develop safety improvements, but at the very least I can agree the bulk of the gist of work has already been done. Sudden stops will never be healthy for the human body in this eon. I know you know that well based on your comments and I’m just elaborating.
@@WeekendsOutsideFL I'm not convinced the rise in fatalities is due to higher speed limits. European countries like Germany, Austria, Poland, France, Italy, and the Netherlands all have less road traffic fatalities than the US in spite of the fact their speed limits are set just as high if not higher than many states in the US.
@Panther WP yeah, GM quality took a turn for the worst in 2005/6/7. They made some interesting cars but Richard Wagoner ultimately ruined the company with shit like the 9-7x and the countless rebadged Daewoos.
That Cadillac was old, it dates back to 1992. GM already had the all new redesigned Seville in the works for the 1998 model year. The new model was tested one year after this and IIHS walked back their claims since the new model performed significantly better. Y'all quick to smack GM but don't even realize an old model that's being phased out soon will always perform worse than the model that will be replacing it. GM didn't make an excuse. That car was out since 1992 and noone complained of it performing bad in a crash test. Because this was a new test. All the other cars tested were new. The Continental came out for 1995, it got redesigned for 1998. The E class was new. The Lexus just got redesigned. The Infiniti just got redesigned. And the BMW just got a refresh. The Cadillac was the oldest car in the bunch.
Would like to have seen a 1997 Buick Park Avenue, which was the first year of the last Park Avenue body style, and also a 1997 Town Car, which would be the last of the 90s Town Car bodystyles.
It’s quite funny looking back at this and seeing the greed & denial some manufacturers had. Seeing how against they were at the testing and how “it makes no sense” is absurd by today’s standards. Long story short- thank you IIHS for pushing for safer vehicles and disrupting the bare minimum values set by the government. 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
A 1997 Mercedes-Benz E420 was crash tested on April 16, 1997 into a fixed deformable barrier at 39.9 mi/h (64.3 km/h) and a 41 percent overlap on the driver side. A Hybrid III 50th percentile male dummy was positioned in the driver seat with the lap/shoulder belt fastened. Measures of intrusion taken after the crash indicated the lower instrument panel in front of the dummy moved rearward 3-5 cm. Resultant intrusion in the driver footwell measured 14 cm at the footrest and 13-19 cm at other places on the toepan. The upper end of the steering column moved upward 10 cm and rearward 3 cm. The driver seat rotated forward and outboard due to deformation of the floor under the seat. The driver door and trunk opened during the crash, but all other doors remained closed. Postcrash examination of the driver door indicated the latch was activated by door deformation between the exterior door handle and door latch. The left rear door required tools to open, but the right front and right rear doors opened with ease after the crash.
Each time they'd air these I'd always get excited. Partly due to the hope that cars had improved, and partly due to watching Dateline and Brian rip the manufacturers a new one. :-D
Yes, they were very safe cars during that time period, although newer cars have proven to be as safe or safer, at least when it comes to crash test performance. The E39 is also widely regarded as “the best 5-series”, so he may have also wanted it because of that.
“since it’s funded by insurance companies, it has a vested interest in cutting insurance claims then the added costs of making a safer car.” Uh, are you kidding me? The manufacturers are claiming the IIHS is trying to save lives, although it may cost a few more $$. 🤦🏼♂️ That spokesperson should be fired, not a good look. The market sets the price of a car, I think they meant to say it would hurt profits.
To think that I’ve had these (and the ability to convert them) and just now got around to it. Glad I kept them and that other people enjoy them as much as I do. Thx for subscribing.
@@chasechildress2720 I do not have all of them. As more models started achieving good ratings, there were less and less episodes and more brief clips on their website about their latest rounds of testing.
A result that was considered great back then, like the BMW or the Lexus, would now be considered Poor or Marginal because of the great amount of deformation around the occupant compartment. Amazing to see how far car safety has improved.
The BMW had very little intrusion, the Lexus had a bit more, but it still fell under current spec of a good rating. The injury measures were all within spec too.It’s not that those vehicles would have been rated lower, it’s that manufacturers have learned how to build even better structures.
@@titan9259 chill. If you look at today’s cars performing this test, barely or no deformation occurs in the A pilar or occupant compartment overall. That’s what I’m talking about. Not about the Dummy’s readings.
Before becoming the Vice President of Engineering Affairs at the Association of International Automobile Manufacturers in 1995, he spent 27 years at NHTSA working on safety engineering, including heading up the Office of Defects Investigation. Of course, at times in its past, NHTSA has been accused of ignoring defects or refusing investigations, presumably due to lobbying pressure applied by the auto industry, so maybe the AIAM gig was a natural transition. He was only there four years before retiring in 1999, though.
@@jonathankleinow2073 Awesome insight. I did not know this. His demeanor was very stoic and unemotional. Almost as if he was being paid to say those things...hmmm...
The way he talks is 3mph 😆🤦♂️ Also them saying accidents at 40mph are rare…? I’m from Minnesota and nearly all the roads are 50 to 55mph and there are a lot of people trying to turn left and right onto roads that fast and may not pick up speed fast enough or see an on coming car 🤷♂️
Gotta love how the auto manufacturer's cry foul with the IIHS method of testing. Responsible corporate stewardship would have the leaders of these auto manufacturers asking how they can make their cars safer in the IIHS style of testing.
No Bush Jr or Trump to wring their hands and foam at the mouth over. No reporting of our military's position to the enemy to do...No scary crime in the scary "black neighborhood" to report on by choreographing a grainy slow motion black & white rap video for that day..."journalists" are the worst kind of filth. Just listen to this "journalist's" trashy Discovery channel style start / stop sound bite method of talking...you just KNOW the teaser clips played you through five commercial blocks like some carrot on a stick insult from your lessor.
It would have been more epic if the Lexus LS400 was black. If they crash tested the car being black! Especially the blonde lady standing behind the computer saying Legs are quiet!
I find it kind of strange that they included the Lexus LS400 and Infiniti Q45 into a group of midsize luxury cars. God I miss my '97 LS400, bar none the best car I've ever owned so far.
@@carsandcrashtests Goes to show that the German's have been top tier in safety for a long time. I drive an E-Class now and it's supposedly better than 90% of vehicles on the road in crash safety. The new Audi's I think have the best safety across the board especially the new E-Tron.
I just realised when some of the minivan crash tests from 1996 were on the video like the Carfax Segment and this video the audio of some of the minivans like the Pontiac Trans Sport, Chevy Astro and etc, have different audios for different Dateline segments
George Parker is such a 🤡 if he thinks 40mph is an ultra high speed crash 🙄 Him saying accidents at 40mph are rare…? I’m from Minnesota and nearly all the roads are 50 to 55mph and there are a lot of people trying to turn left and right onto roads that fast and may not pick up speed fast enough or see an on coming car 🤷♂️
At 8:20, did the insurance institute accidentally predict faulty Takata airbag deployment explosives? I believe this year of Q45 was affected (according to TSB postings)
This doesn't simulate real world accidents, in a vehicle to vehicle collision both vehicles would have crumple zones as opposed to one hitting a solid wall, big difference
The shot at 10:25 shows the seat position they're using, but I have to ask; who drives like that? I drive with my arms fully extended to the wheel, which would be easily 10" farther back, than how they have positioned the crash test dummy.
I see plenty of women drive exactly like they positioned the crash dummie. Just like cars larger people can take more force but also will sit farther back if they can. Iihs is doing it exactly right half the most vulnerable position he their test standard
If you put its individual ratings into the IIHS Rating Calculator you’ll see that it’s on the borderline of Acceptable/Marginal. One rating lower in any category would have given it a Marginal rating overall.
My best guess is likely because the 90/900-series which is the model they would’ve included in this group was going to be turned into the S80 in two years. Rather than test an outgoing model (which was already similar to the 850/S70 that already received a Good rating), they’d wait to test the new model. They included the new S80 in the group of midsize luxury cars when they tested them in 1999 (it was actually a large luxury car, as was the Audi A6), which I also have the episode of on my channel.
@@Noah_E Volvo is definitely a luxury brand. I would know since we have them and I grown up with Volvo. Plus Volvo still in Sweden the other divisions of trucks and other.
Customer wins in any case. Their next car will have better safety no matter how much they disagree with the tests. Having watched a lotta tests. I do keep my seat backwards a lot more than most people with still a comfy reach. The knee is in the most vulnerable place. And that's the most painful location to get hurt I hear. So I cringe when I see people with their faces right on the steering wheel.
The biggest issue for having a reclined seat is the chance that you'd submarine under the seatbelt in a crash. However, if your car has front seatbelt pretensions, it reduces the risk of that happening.
i'm really pissed they waited till 2021 to release these videos and test results. this would have been so beneficial for people to have known back in 1997. !!
@@aaronerskine3401 Are you talking about the youtube clip ? Of course it's released only now those are taken from vhs tapes recordings But this was part of a news tv program that WAS on tv/on air in the 90's and early 2000's so people knew about this (hence why they were so many changes done to the cars but it took until 2006 for the company to work with IIHS to make those changes )
What this shows is heavy front wheel drive cars with set back front axles have more footwell intrusion issues than their rear wheel drive set forward axle competitors. The Lincoln is the longest and heaviest car of the bunch. I was surprised how well it did given the extra weight it has pushing on the structure and that huge modular 4.6 V8 under its hood. Good thing, the V8 is on the right side and the transmission is on the left side. Ditto for the Cadillac. There's a reason why most American front wheel drive cars have their engines mounted on the right side, it's to keep the engine from coming through the firewall injuring the driver. This is why some front wheel drive cars built over seas usually have their engines on the left side because they were designed to be right hand drive. The more forward the front axle is mounted the less chance of footwell and firewall intrusion. That BMW performed excellently. Then again it was also the smallest and lightest car of the bunch. A car that weighs between 3,000-3,500 lbs with a set forward front axle pushed near the front bumper will usually perform well in this test. A large 3,900lb front wheel drive unit with its front axle set back just ahead of the front doors will always perform so-so because the tires and driveline will crush the firewall and footwell. *Note, Cadillac redesigned its Seville shortly after this but not because of this, and it performed significantly better with the new model. This model Seville dates back to 1992 so it was due for a redesign anyway. *