Quote:
Originally Posted by MonsieurBon
Thanks for all the anecdotes so far, folks!
My sister has totalled two Saturn SL2s, neither one her fault (at least according to insurance adjuster), and both full on frontal smacks at 40+mph. Both times the airbags deployed. She's about my height 5'9" and sits reasonably far back from the wheel. She says both times the airbag did hit her in the face, but not very hard, and the seatbelt retained her the most. She also says she could feel the ABS working both times, so like many of you have been saying, perhaps it's something I should also be looking for.
I never drive without my seatbelt. I imagine that the airbag might help with whiplash by preventing the head from going too far forward?
I guess there's another part to this question. I haven't yet test driven a Mercedes Benz. From what I vividly remember of every mid 80s Volvo (also safe, also big) that I have driven, I did always feel very safe, but when driving through winding mountain passes i felt like it wasn't the structural safety of the car, but the handling that I was concerned about. A nice safety cage doesn't do you much good if you go skidding into a crevasse. Any thoughts on that?
-Aaron
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I had a 1984 or 5 VW Jetta Diesel, which is exactly the same car as a Rabbit with a trunk on the back rather than a hatch-back. It was t-boned by a taxi (ex police cruiser) doing about 35 to 40mph.
The taxi hit just aft of the passenger door hinges. He was going fast enough to push me across two lanes of traffic, without hitting anything else, and to smash the driver's fender into a lampost on the opposite sidewalk. It was quite a dramatic accident. The VW was bent like a banana - the entire vehicle was bent around the point of impact - and the passenger door was literally bent in around the edge of the passenger seat. The floor on the passenger side was distorted and crumpled up under the dash.
I still thank God that I was travelling alone and had no passenger.
In short, the 1980's VWs have poor crash protection. If you value that feature buy a Mercedes.