I saw this on CNN today. Hmm.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/08/06/car...udy/index.html

 

nice find, i guess we all gotta be real careful now after reading this lol

 

Tell me about it when I got my bumper, fender, and headlight replaced and painted it was almost $4K

 

I guess so.

 

What happened?

 

Why does my favorite car have to be ranked among the American cars? It was never like this decades ago. Now all of these extra sensors in cars have caused manufacturers(apparently like Nissan) to take shortcuts.

I mean, doesn't anybody remember when the 1997 model came out. The first thing Nissan did was to improve crash worthiness of the Maxima.

 

wow

 

ouch ! =/

 

I've been noticing (maybe it's just me) but lately there's been a lot of double talk/negative talk about Import Vehicles (despite that some of them are manufactured in the US).

Not sure why your costs were so high, my car was slammed on the passenger's side front door by a Ford F-150 going at about 35-45mph and all it did was damage my door, window and broke my Tie Rod and my repairs were less than yours. Luckily for me my Airbag didn't even deploy on the passenger's side.

I almost forgot to mention that the Ford F-150 was totalled and had to be towed away, so much for low rating on our car's crashworthiness.

I suspect that some of these articles are either slightly canting their stories to steer buyers to US Brand's like GM, Ford, Dodge, etc., etc.

 

I think we will continue to see vehicles with high crash repairs for minor accidents, particularly for front-end damage.

A main reason is due to European regulations. Apparently in the EU, they have a problem with pedestrians being hit and injured by cars. So their safety rules were changed so that new vehicles must cause less injury if pedestrians are hit. This affects both the design (blunt nose vs. pointy) and choice of materials. Particularly for the latter, this means more sacrificial materials that are damaged or blow apart on even minor impacts.

You can't have it both ways; either a sturdy front end that with minimal impact damage, or less injury to pedestrians.

Sure, the current Maxima is basically a North American market vehicle. But with the global nature of car design and construction, there is much overlap between markets. Designers are going to make models as similar as possible to reduce costs, and that means will we see impact from the European standards (no pun intended).

 

TBA is absolutely correct. I recall that, back during the intro of the '09 Maxima, Nissan mentioned the front end of the '09 Maxima as being more 'pedestrian impact friendly', and seemed proud of the fact it met the latest European pedestrian impact requirements.

I have always taken these crash-worthiness tests with a grain of salt, because every crash is different. Different angles, different heights, different speeds, different materials and shapes on the object being impacted, etc. These impact tests are well-intended,

BUT:

The overriding objective of designers and engineers is not to protect the car, but to have the car protect both the occupants and any pedestrians the car might hit.

Way back in the 1950s, I wondered why all cars couldn't have a tall band of rubber around the entire car, sort of 'bumper car' like, so anything less than a full-blown crash would do little or no damage. But life (read 'style') doesn't work that way.

The realities are that hitting anything with the front end of a stylistically acceptable car that is also designed to cushion an impact with a pedestrian is going to cause a lot of damage, even at low speed. That is the price we (and insurance companies) have to pay in order to maximize safety.