ANCAP 2008 Ford Transit Crash Test
December 6, 2008 by Anthony Crawford
I don’t have a good enough answer for you, but its something ANCAP is hoping the driving public in Australia will demand when they walk into a new car showroom.
Indeed, perhaps your first question to the sales person should be “What ANCAP star rating is this vehicle?” The same thing if you’re a fleet buyer or even a tradesman, looking for a new van or utility.
The last crash test I attended was the optional Pole Test, which Mitsubishi opted to run for the current generation Lancer, at their cost, which achieved an ANCAP five-star rating.
I wrote about that experience and how truly violent and graphic it was when witnessed up close – a small car colliding with a steel pole which is lined up with the driver’s head, at 29km/h sideways.
The Lancer is fitted with head protecting side airbags, which was a significant factor in the car achieving a five star rating and the reason you may well live through the real event if it should happen in your lifetime.
While many car companies have heeded the call from both ANCAP and buyers alike for safer cars, commercial vehicles have been slow to adopt such tried and proven safety systems.
The Ford Transit is a hugely successful product globally for Ford, made even more famous when the queen of the Nurburgring, Sabine Schmitz (she’s famous for both her BMW M5 taxi rides and endurance racing) drove one around Nurburgring for the British TV series Top Gear.
While it’s quite well equipped with creature comforts, safety wise, its not so good, at least with the standard specification, which includes driver’s airbag and ABS with EBD only.
If you want a passenger airbag and side airbags, along with Dynamic Stability Control (DSC) with Traction Control, you’ll have to option those, but at least they’re available at a reasonable price.
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.
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