ANCAP 2008 Ford Transit Crash Test
December 6, 2008 by Anthony Crawford
- Anthony Crawford
Heard of ANCAP? It stands for the Australasian New Car Assessment Program and provides potential car buyers with information on how much protection you can expect from your vehicle in the event of a serious front or side crash.
The overwhelming number of our fellow Australians who perish on our roads each and every year, remains alarming. That figure, more than 1600, is near enough to three times the number of Australian troops who died during the Vietnam War.
Worse still, most of these tragic deaths don’t even make it into the newspaper, as society has been largely desensitised due to the every day occurrence.
Moreover, the other number you don’t hear about, are those who are seriously injured in car crashes, roughly 10 times that of fatalities. So if we take the 2007 number above, its reasonable to suggest that 16,000 people are incapacitated in some way, and will most likely draw on the public health system. The cost to us all is staggering, not to mention the lifelong pain of losing a loved one.
While ANCAP doesn’t have anywhere near the size of budget it should have, it does have a serious passion for saving lives on our roads and lobbies both governments and carmakers for constant improvements in car safety devices such as curtain airbags and Electronic Stability Control (ESC) as it prefers to label the feature.
Take ESC or Electronic Stability Program (ESP) as some call it, German authorities say that this remarkable piece of electronic wizardry can eliminate up to 80 percent of all skidding crashes and thus, 35 percent of all fatalities.
It’s a similar story in safety conscious Sweden, where out of 500 road deaths each year, ESC can reduce fatalities by 80 to 100.
In the United States, with its enormous car population, up to 56 percent of all fatalities could be avoided with the fitment of ESC.
So why then doesn’t the Federal Government make ESC and curtain airbags mandatory on all new car sold in Australia?
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lol that barina is still smiling.
I still think the problem with ESC/DSC etc is there is plenty of good ones but there is still plenty of bad ones that you sometimes feel are only there to tick a box in the brochure rather then save lives.
It’s now available on most cars but there is still some dragging their feet particularly commercial vehicles unfortunately as these cars are often more likely to crash due to the lack of grip from light truck tyres & high centres of gravity, not to mention they do more driving then most people do & often with younger men who are pushed for time.
The Barina looks less damaged than the Falcon ute….
If you need a large van, get the Mercedes Sprinter.
I had a Transit before the Sprinter, and the Sprinter is miles ahead.
Good point Chris. Australia Post recently changed from Transit to Mercedes, due I believe to their bad experiences with Transit.
Simon look closely ont he falcon the fron is gone but look at the a and b pillars and see howt he barinas are crumpled
Australia Post went to Sprinters because of the availability of Automatic transmissions and Ford had issues with Supply of the Transit. Very frustrating as my dealership supplied Aus Post with their Transits and now that we don’t we have lost quite a bit of business. Unfortunately this is a manufacturer problem…
Spitfire – Australia Post changed over due to the lack of availability of an automatic gearbox on the current range of Transits. Probably not a good argument to bring up reliability when talking about mercedes vans, because mercedes vans actually have an EXTREEMLY suspect reliability record in Australia… one would hope they are ontop of them now, but the earlier models where hopeless, constant and often terminal overheating issues…
looks like we where both thinking the same thing Pat E!!
I’m a holden man as everyone knows, but i used to work for Australia post and credit where its due, those transits where flogged HARD every day and the Australia Post fleet of transits where often up to 10 years old, yet they still kept smiling and coming back for more.
And when i say flogged.. i mean properly PROPERLY flogged!
Nice one Richo!
Yes, they were flogged pretty well – just ask the service dept boys! haha
Well looks like spitfire just got shot down.
Richo… Id say Merc-Benz have ironed out the problems with the Sprinter vans given that they are being used by the Ambulance Service – the last thing they’d want is an electrical gremlin to shutdown the engine whilst rushing someone to hospital etc.
Having said that I believe The transit still remains the worlds most popular commercial van because it comes in so many configurations etc unlike the Sprinter the VW Transporter The Renault Trafik or the Hiace.
Wheelnut,
i dont think anyone in the ambos think that hard about about the past of the make of vehicles they use.
I know the ambos put more choice into the purpose of the vehicle than any past bad experiences with the vehicle
Guys, I currently own a Sprinter and can’t fault it at all, however I can’t say the same for the previous Transit.
My Sprinter has had no problems at all, so don’t know what Richo is smoking ?
Maybe he’d care to provide some hard facts on these faults?
As some of you have already stated, the Ambulance fleet, Australia Post and many other big fleets run Sprinters now, cause they have proved themselves more than capable and reliable.
Hi have a 2004 sprinter 2.2TDI 125,000km, i wouldn’t say they are a “bad” van but they definately aren’t great either! I just had to do the injectors on mine, an i think doing that on a van that has not worked hard at all with only 125 k’s on the clock is pretty poor and to top it off Mercedes are RIP OFF’s! $2500 just for the injectors only, i’m starting to like the Ford Transits
Bob says I was shot down. Well I am still airborne with all guns blazing.
The facts are Australia Post have ditched their Ford Transit vans and embraced Mercedes. I rest my case.
Spitfire, the reason for Post not choosing Transits again is Ford do not do an auto box any longer and therefore could not for fill tender process!
Sprinter with less than 30,000klm on the clock (before first service) with failled cooling fans I wouldn’t call a good start with Post, would you?
Also very expensive labour rates and parts I wouldn’t say that Sprinters are going to save Post any money!! If anyone can test a van to the point of distruction Post drivers will be a good test ground.
Does anyone have a view on transit vs ducato??
Any word on the ford transit safety results?
I see elsewhere that the ford transit has an ancap rating of 5 – how did it get this high score?
Well Rolf let me tell you the Transit is not much better for parts. Injectors for tubo deisel range from $450 to $1200 each. and that is just for the injectors.
Mark, thats not suprising one little bit. Price injectors for any late model diesel vehicle and you’ll find similar pricing I’d very confidently say.
Actually non of the late models are as expensive as $1200. But they’re still around $828.00, but no great suprise there
..im a pom lol and ive owned, driven and sold many transits over the years ….the transit is and always was aperfect example of a commercial vehicle comfortable relatively cheap and capable i presently run an old ex aus post swb van[amongst other transit vans on my fleet ] with a2.0ohc [petrol] lump init its done 300000kms and still going strong why ? because its been looked after.it doesnt help that Ford here semm to have no interest in supporting the tranny [i quote 783 bucks for a set of rear brake shoes ]i bought them for 16quid back home and had them shipped here for 10quid ..the guy inthe parts dept basically couldnt wait to get rid of me
ive also driven merc sprinters good vans but bloody expensive to run and when they go wrong they go wrong big time..the reason i use euro vans is because no jap van is wide enough for bike recovery and the only euro van worth owning is the transit
Don’t go to Ford for brakes mate, Look up a company called RDA (Rotors, Drums Australia), rear shoes are well under $100.