I had opportunity to spend time with respected friend who works with a major insurance company this evening. I was sharing with him that I was considering trading my G35 for either an S80, M35 or TL. I asked him about the safety of the Acura/Honda product and he paused and said "let me show you something and you can decide for yourself".
He pulled up photos of two cars, both of which had left the road going backwards and struck a rock embankment, both at similar speeds. One was an Accord. This car had been sheared in half just behind the front seats. The interesting thing was that the car had come apart at the seam welds. It was noticeable that the welds were farther apart than you would expect them to be. (It was like deja-vu all over again; in my days as a reserve deputy, I worked two wrecks where Civics were torn completely in half, the same way).
The other car was an S80. Essentially the passenger compartment of the S80 was intact with none of the shearing or breaking of welds noticed in the other car. Rescue workers had for some reason cut through the A-Pillar and B-Pillar of the S80. It was amazing to see in cross-section how thick the metal was in these areas, compared to the sheared frame and metal on the Accord. The driver and passenger of the S80 walked out of the hospital after being checked out.
While many cars these days will have five-star safety ratings, these ratings do not necessarily translate to the myriad of ways cars can be crashed. In the same way that car makers can engineer to meet specific gas mileage standards, they can engineer to safety standards as well since these are limited to specific circumstances. But if you can, talk to someone involved in actual assessment of crashes, and you get a different perspective. The standards are certainly helpful to a degree, but not an end-all, and don't necessarily give a complete picture.
Volvo safety is real. My friend's wife drives an S60. He drives a Ford pickup, but would tell you if Volvo made a pickup, he'd be in one. When my family is out and about, I feel good that they are in our XC90; that's the best protection I know how to buy for them on the road. Now if I can just find and S80 V8...
He pulled up photos of two cars, both of which had left the road going backwards and struck a rock embankment, both at similar speeds. One was an Accord. This car had been sheared in half just behind the front seats. The interesting thing was that the car had come apart at the seam welds. It was noticeable that the welds were farther apart than you would expect them to be. (It was like deja-vu all over again; in my days as a reserve deputy, I worked two wrecks where Civics were torn completely in half, the same way).
The other car was an S80. Essentially the passenger compartment of the S80 was intact with none of the shearing or breaking of welds noticed in the other car. Rescue workers had for some reason cut through the A-Pillar and B-Pillar of the S80. It was amazing to see in cross-section how thick the metal was in these areas, compared to the sheared frame and metal on the Accord. The driver and passenger of the S80 walked out of the hospital after being checked out.
While many cars these days will have five-star safety ratings, these ratings do not necessarily translate to the myriad of ways cars can be crashed. In the same way that car makers can engineer to meet specific gas mileage standards, they can engineer to safety standards as well since these are limited to specific circumstances. But if you can, talk to someone involved in actual assessment of crashes, and you get a different perspective. The standards are certainly helpful to a degree, but not an end-all, and don't necessarily give a complete picture.
Volvo safety is real. My friend's wife drives an S60. He drives a Ford pickup, but would tell you if Volvo made a pickup, he'd be in one. When my family is out and about, I feel good that they are in our XC90; that's the best protection I know how to buy for them on the road. Now if I can just find and S80 V8...
