A Well-Structured Car OR Poorly Built Car with ABS & Airbags?


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Slowly market is moving towards offering more safety features in cars.I saw many people think that their car is safe because their car has features like ABS with EBD,Airbags,Rear Wiper and defogger,Door autolock,Brake support and so on.Does it really make sense to buy a car only because it has those features.How many of you really look into how well the structure is built.When talk about structure does the weight of car defines the safety.A car with 1.5 ton weight is always safer than a 1ton car...Does it hold good?

We believe that safety feature and well built complement each other to make a safe car.But what if you have only option either to choose a well built car or a car with latest safety feature.Which one would you go for?
 
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Re: A well structured car or poorly build car with ABS and Airbag?

ABS,EBD,BRAKE ASSIST etc---are preventive technologies , so the structural safety of a car is not important.
AIRBAGS---structural safety is very important, a car with weak structure with even 8 airbags is a waste. ex, kwid,alto 800 etc.
1.5ton/1.00ton---The quality of the metal is the deciding factor, imagine 1kg of low quality steel with 1kg of high quality steel. Also the strength of the Pillars,roof bonnet are important.

I will chose a well built car(with crumple zones) and drive around 80kmph. Fiat punto classic is an example.
 
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Re: A well structured car or poorly build car with ABS and Airbag?

The weight of the car does not ensure it's safety. In the latest NCAP results we saw how Mahindra Scorpio failed though weighing more than 2 ton. It's not the weight that matters but the quality of the metal used. Also not all cars are designed to be safe at high speeds. But when we hear ABS, Airbag etc, we feel the car is safe even at insanely high speeds.
 
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Re: A well structured car or poorly build car with ABS and Airbag?

A structurally well built car is safer than preventive equipment because accidents by nature are unpredictable, but even a well built car works to save us only up to certain speeds. What is important is the speed of crash. Roughly 23 milliseconds is required for the unbelted driver to hit the steering when vehicle is at a speed of 48 kmph. Depending on chemicals used in airbag, it takes 20 to 30 milliseconds for the airbag to deploy. In high speed crashes, even the airbag is unable to deploy fully before the driver crashes into steering. A combination of seat belt (without pretensioners) and airbag deployment works upto speeds of 100 kmph. (With pretensioners 120 to 140 kmph crash speed is also 'safe') .Beyond that even a structurally sound vehicle with all safety equipment will be useless. Two vehicles crashing at over 50 kmph is enough to defeat all safety system . Good brakes often reduce the crash speed which is why in some cases seemly high speed crash occupants come out safely.
 
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Re: A well structured car or poorly build car with ABS and Airbag?

We had talked about this earlier in detail, though it was inconclusive .
As chevrolet said ABS + EBD is a preventive technology , by which skidding does not happen and the car is in control. Airbags come in to action only when a collision happens(if driver belted) and that also is of no use, if there is no structural integrity for the car. Now a days, structural integrity is tampered with, so as to reduce the weight of the car, to get more fuel efficiency. Though they provide ABS +EBD and Airbags, with a full on crash (80+ Kmph), nobody can survive.
The problem shown here about Scorpio is that, the A pillar cabin and roof design is bad.Scorpio weighs higher not because of the body panels, it is because of the engine and seven people seating set up. It is not adding any safety and the higher weight means better safety theory is proven wrong. That is where ecosport scores,with a stronger A pillar and better cabin design. The same goes with Swift and other competitors , were they had lowered the weight of the car and in a 100Kmph crash nothing survives. If you look that way, Punto and Polo are one of the best cars with structural integrity in B segment . Add ABS +EBD and Airbags, they become much better cars. Polo comes with that in the base variant itself?

So polo and punto with these features are the best bet as of now.
 
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