Subaru stumbles in Euro NCAP

Crash safety testing authority Euro NCAP has released results from the latest batch of cars tested and the outcome is an anomaly for Subaru. While Mazda (Mazda6), Mitsubishi (Lancer) and Toyota (Avensis and iQ) have all scored five stars for the testing program, Subaru was one of two manufacturers to score just four stars with its representative model. The other car that failed to attain a five-star safety rating was the Citroen C3 Picasso, a car we're told will be coming to Australia.

When ANCAP, the local crash-testing mob supported by government and motoring associations, tested Subaru's small car back in 2007, the Impreza hatch not only rated five stars, but also topped the ladder for pedestrian safety, being the first car to score four stars in this category.

Euro NCAP's findings are thus at odds with ANCAP's, yet the testing method is ostensibly the same.  The Euro-spec Impreza actually performed better in adult safety than any of the cars being tested, other than the two Toyotas (for full details, click here). It was only marginally behind the pack in child safety and was well ahead of every other car in respect of pedestrian safety -- a result that echoes the ANCAP finding in Australia.

Where the Subaru suffered was in the 'Safety Assist' category, which judges a car on the strength of its active safety equipment. These are things like stability control, which the Impreza has fitted as standard, and a seatbelt reminder for the passenger seat, which the European-spec car doesn't have, but Aussie-spec cars do. The Carsales Network learned this from David Rowley, Subaru Australia's National Corporate Affairs Manager.

"We have asked that question," Rowley replied when asked the reason for the discrepancy, "and the answer that we've got is that the car they tested did not have a front-seatbelt warning light -- and we have those in Australia."

"There's also a reference in the Euro NCAP text to not all Imprezas in Europe having ESC as standard. Now we in Australia have ESC [Electronic Stability Control] as standard across the entire Subaru range, so those appear to be the discrepancies, but from what we understand, the key point is not having the seatbelt warning on the front passenger seat.

"Our understanding is that that car, if it had had that would have achieved the five-star status.

"It's a very slight variation in spec and, given that safety is a core part of our philosophy, we pay very close attention as to what safety features we put in the cars for local consumption -- and that's the key point of difference in this case, apparently.

"Some markets [place] different importance on safety, put it that way."

Rowley may have been at his diplomatic best, but ANCAP Technical Manager, Michael Paine, was more forthright about Subaru's failure to specify a front-passenger seatbelt reminder for European-market Imprezas.

"It basically boils down to a huge blunder with Subaru in Europe; they didn't 'spec' the passenger seatbelt reminder..." he told the Carsales Network.

Paine's frank assessment of Subaru's product planning also provided an enlightening insight into the way NCAP works.

"I worked out, looking at all the numbers from Europe, that if [the European-spec Impreza] had had the passenger seatbelt reminder, then Euro NCAP would have given that vehicle five stars.

"And if we'd taken the crash test results and scored them our way, again, it would have needed the passenger seatbelt reminder to get the five stars. Either way, it was a specification problem.

"There was one other issue with the European testing; in the side impact, the door was judged to have opened. It lost a point that way too. So basically it lost two points, compared with the Australian ratings. All the injury measurements were very close... It boils down to the passenger seatbelt reminder and that door opening."

Rowley also discussed the offending door in the test.

"That can happen in tests, but we believe that that wouldn't have impacted the result, because the core structure of the car wasn't deformed," he said.

Paine believes that if the crash could have been reproduced in Australia with exactly the same damage, the Aussie Impreza with a seatbelt reminder for the front passenger seat would still have accrued the necessary points for a five-star rating.

"[The door] meets their definition for losing a point, which is that it releases from the primary latch position," he said. "It very rarely happens; it happened with the Commodore a couple of years ago -- and Holden had to fix that -- and the Elantra as well.

"Just looking at the Australian Impreza test," he read from his notes, "we got 34.66, so even if it had lost those two points, it would have just scraped into five stars. It needed 32 and a half..."

"Euro NCAP brought those seatbelt reminders in as bonus points and probably over two-thirds of the cars that have a five-star rating have only got there because of the bonus points from seatbelt reminders."

Paine is upfront about the Euro NCAP testing regime and ANCAP diverging.

"The first thing to note is that Europe [Euro NCAP] have abandoned the front occupant star rating; they now only publish a combined star rating," he said. "They don't actually list stars for the driver and front passenger [separately]."

This is possibly where the confusion has crept in for Subaru's European product planners, believing that the lack of a front passenger seatbelt reminder would not penalise the Impreza.

As a side issue, we asked Paine whether ANCAP would follow the Euro NCAP test regime in this regard, since without that alignment in testing procedures, cars tested by Euro NCAP would no longer necessarily be directly comparable to cars tested by ANCAP.

Paine observed that Euro NCAP and ANCAP testing have slightly -- but significantly -- moved away from each other over the years. A problem arising from this is that European marque distributors in Australia rely on Euro NCAP testing in their marketing of cars locally, whereas Asian, American and Australian cars are tested by ANCAP, to a slightly different standard.

"We're sitting back and watching what's going on in Europe and how much confusion it causes amongst consumers," replied Paine. "ANCAP started a system of raising the bar for five stars; for example, the requirement last year for making stability control a requirement for five stars... and before that, a couple of years earlier, we broke with 'Euro' and required a pole test for five stars."

Returning to the subject of the seatbelt reminder as a point-scoring device to cross the threshold from four to five stars, we questioned Paine as to whether the reminder was 'overweight' in the assessment of a vehicle's safety, when even ANCAP's statistics show just four per cent of drivers don't buckle up as a matter of course in this country. This has been a point of contention in Holden's recent announcement that the Commodore Omega was a five-star ANCAP-rated car (more here). Paine believes a seatbelt reminder CAN make a difference to the road toll, even in Australia.

"It depends how annoying it is," he said. "The Swedes had a good idea -- I don't think it ever got implemented -- but if you haven't got your seatbelt on, then your air conditioner and radio won't work; a simple inconvenience thing. Rather than punishment, you nudge people.

"The worse complaint I've heard about [audible seatbelt reminders] is that you put a slab of beer on your front passenger seat and it beeps at you all the time," he said with a laugh.

So, the upshot of all this?

Subaru plainly recruits a better class of product planner in Australia than in Europe, for one thing.

Secondly -- and more seriously -- whether through different vehicle specifications for different markets or the divergence in testing procedures between Euro NCAP and ANCAP, sooner or later, Euro NCAP will become irrelevant in Australia. The Impreza result is perhaps advance warning of that.