Independent safety authority ANCAP has awarded the new Suzuki Jimny a three-star safety rating after it failed to score highly enough in three of the four assessment areas.
Hindering the Jimny’s safety rating were a number of structural and design weaknesses as well as a lack of safety aids and limited protection for pedestrians and cyclists.
The frontal offset test presented excessive deformation of the passenger compartment and penalties were incurred for loss of structural integrity, steering wheel and pedal intrusion and knee injury risk.
The driver’s airbag inflation also presented some problems with the test dummy making contact with the steering wheel through the airbag.
Another issue for the Jimny was the AEB system which lacks cyclist detection and night-time functionality. There is no lane keeping assistance or pedestrian detection.
Of the assessment areas, the Jimny performed strongest in Child Occupant Protection achieving 84 per cent with a range of child restraints able to provide good levels of protection for children in frontal and side crash scenarios.
For the remaining areas, Adult Occupant Protection scored 73 per cent whilst Vulnerable Road User Protection and Safety Assist scored 52 per cent and 50 per cent respectively.
ANCAP Chief Executive, James Goodwin said: “The results show that the fundamentals of vehicle safety are still critical, and simply fitting an AEB system is not enough to earn a good rating.”
“While marketed for off-road driving, these vehicles also spend much of their time on regular roads and buyers shouldn’t have to forego safety,” Mr Goodwin said.
The three-star ANCAP safety rating applies to GL and GLX variants sold in Australia and New Zealand.
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