Well done Holden, now both Aussie made large cars are five star safety rated. A far cry from ten years ago.

It seems that a lot of cars are now getting 5/5 for safety now. So is that it? Are these cars now as safe as they possibly can be? Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great achievement to get a 5 star rating and proves a high degree of safety. My question is if you are ‘perfect’ where is the motivation for a manufacturer to improve further, to innovate beyond what we have today.
Maybe the star rating should be adaptable and as new technologies become available, a new star is added and only cars with night vision or automatic breaking or whatever is the latest worthwhile safety feature are eligible for top points?
BTW, congrats to ALL those manufacturers that have made safety a priority. It’s great to have safe choices across the full range of cars.

Life Guard – I believe “the Pole Test” which you are referring to relates back to the ANCAp tests when the VE was first released a couple of years ago – about the same time as the Toyota Aurion.

Holden only provided 4 cars because they were also trying to get enough cars out to the dealerships so that there were enough cars for people to test drive as well as satisfy the expected increase in [post release] demand

However; there were also reports that the Aurion also failed the Pole test – but due to a loop hole that existed in ANCAPs regulations at the time; Toyota was able to provide 3 more cars [which they did ]until they passed the Pole test

Which means Holden took part in 4 tests and used 4 cars all of which passed = 100%. whereas Toyota took part in 5 tests but used 8 cars – 3 of them apparently failed = 62%

However; since those initial tests with the VE and Aurion; ANCAP have closed the loop hole as well as made changes to the scoring of the tests to make it harder to achieve 5 stars.

Yet I believe that ANCAP don’t test the overall safety of a particular Model of Car; I believe they test the safety of a particular car of a particular model.. which means whilst my VE may pass one of the ANCAP tests such as the Pole Test your VE could fail the same test.

Not only that but they are done in controlled conditions and don’t allow for any other factors – the main one being human intervention – as if anyone would intentionally drive into the back end of a truck or a pole with out taking any form of evasive action

Good point Gary!
and also the falcon that only gets curtain airbags in the expensive models.
While 5 stars is a help for buyers who don’t really know anything about safety, the system could be improved a lot.
When buying my new car I focused on the fronal impact score and side impact.
its time for governments to be responsible and mandate all cars are a minimum 5 star safety.

Frosty,
Don’t be a troll and try to suggest that all it took was a seatbelt reminder to finally bring the Commodore up to scratch.
Numerous engineering updates were required.
You exhibit quite a bit of jealousy that Falcon beat the Commodore to the punch with 5 star safety.

Oh and BTW I HATE that green colour! Puke!

Wheelnut, still trying to make excuses why VE didn’t make 5 stas at launch??
ANCAP buy their cars for testing, usually from different dealers, and anonamously. Only the pole test has cars supplied by the manufacturer.
Holden has now re-engineered and upgraded several aspects of VE and now supplied cars for the pole test, hence the 5 star rating.

More examples of improvements under Reuss’s continual evolution approach. Always great to see advances in safety.

Can somebody tell me WTF!!! will a seatbelt light do for me when I am about to hit something at 80km/h. Surely ANCAP can find something more safety conscious that that to justify their existance!!! Lachlan McIhtosh must have little to do with his time!

DesignEng©™ – blah blah blah mate it passed! It’s a five star car! Who cares whether in the past it was a 4 star car because thats all reletive anyway, only last year the falcon was also only 4 stars, merceedes and audi’s etc a few years ago where only 4 star! At the time the VE only scored 4 stars it was competing against the BF falcon which was also a 4 star car (although the BF Falcon was 4 star because of failing the pole test, the VE was 4 star for failing to participate in the pole test, their is a significant difference there).

The fact is yes there where numerous engineering updates to the VE since launch, their has also been updates to the FG falcon since launch! All cars continually evolve with small updates, most normal people would consider this thing to be a good thing that manufacturers are continuously improving their car, only anti-holden trolls like you could possibly find a way to make this into a bad thing

Well done to the locals for doing what we asked for. Keep on rolling Holden/Ford/Toyota. If they can all start making their small cars here then we’ll all be happy.

Jon thats just your Falcon, all commodore have six bags standard.

Wayne – “Safety” is the level of protection from loss damage or injury

So whilst it might not appear to be all that important.. something as simple as a rear passenger seat belt reminder can help reduce the severity of injury sustained by the occupants of a car in the event of an accident – and therefore; contributes towards the overall safety of the car.

Not only that but a considerable number of fines these days are for people not wearing their seatbelts [mainly rear seat passengers].. so given that drivers can lose points from their licence for passengers not wearing their seatbelts [even if the passengers have a drivers licence] it helps save money as the driver knows that all the passengers are wearing thir seatbelt.

it also reltes to features which help avoid or reduce the severity [of injury or damage] suffered in an accident. These features include SRS Airbags Anti-Lock Brakes Electronic Stability Control and even warning lights such as rear passenger seat belt reminders;

I mean if you are about to hit something at 80 Km/h and you don’t have your seat belt on the level of personal injury that you will sustain in the accident will be more severe won’t it?

Jon,
The commercial vehicles always lack behind the sedans.

In contrast, the falcon sedan had dual airbags standard from ’99-’00 ish.
Commercials always miss out on the extras because I suppose the market says for a work rig, people would rather it cheaper than safer.

It makes me Laugh those carrying on about looking at the scores broken down in deciding which car to buy.
In a nut shell a 5 star car is bloody safe, therefore with that box ticked, move on, put aside the fear of dying due to F-all of a point, and look at the rest of the car.

I dont buy a car purely on safety ratings, I chose what I believe is the best car, and then because its got a 5 star rating, thats just the icing. Im not saying a 2 star commodore wouldnt be a worry, but lets enjoy our cars and not just buy the one scores 1% better or whatever.

Oh, and to whoever suggested that these cars 10 years ago werent safe, well for the day they were pretty safe.
10 years ago was only ’99, and cars could come with ABS, disc brakes, Airbags etc back then.
once again to clarify, Im not saying todays cars arent any safer, just saying they werent exactlly death traps either

Realist says: “Perhaps you can enlighten us as to when they will make a profit next? Or when we will actually get productivity into our manufacturing operations?”

The process of actually manufacturing or building something is regarded Productivity.. and the fact that Ford Holden and Toyota build cars here means that they are being productive.

They take a wide range of resources materials and other components which on their own are virtually useless etc. then turn them into something that is a usable practical final product – a car.

How much resources they use how much money it costs or how long it takes to build those cars is another matter an area known as Efficiency..

hey wheelnut where have you been,good to read your comments.also bavarian missile where are you?see the anti aus car brigade are still active,pathetic little souls.

Wayne,
Why do you think that all it took was a little seatbelt reminder light? Because Richo said so?

There were dozens of other detailed engineering changes that Holden put into the VE to bring it up to scratch. A lot of effort was put in by a lot of talented people, don’t diss their efforts with the “stupid little light” BS.

VE MY10 is now 5 Stars accross the range – fantastic!

Whatever you reckon Design Engineer..

If ANCAP buy the cars I am sure that they would have been able to find a couple more VE for the Pole test from somewhere.

Not only that but why would they buy 3 more Aurions in order to get it to pass the Pole Test?

Yet why would they care if a car passes or fails a particular test as they are supposed to be impartial. They are doing the tests on behalf of the manufacturers and insurance companies remember….. and to do something like that to do that would be implying that they have a favourite make doesn’t it?

If that’s the case; They should have also bought 3 more VEs and BF Falcons and test them again to try and improve their score as well

But hey – why just stop at 5 or 8 cars? why not just keep ploughing cars into concrete walls and under the back end of a truck all day?

The cars are supplied to ANCAP by the Car Companies – because they can write-off the cost of the cars as a Research and Development cost whereas ANCAP can’t

Good work Holden. Shame they couldn’t figure something out on the utes to fix the side air bags to make it a 5 star ANCAP as well.

Oh, and the Emerald green colour is nice.

I personally don’t care about ANCAP or the crash test results because they are done under controlled conditions and don’t allow for any other factors such as weather conditions road surface; level of grip on the tyres or more importantly human intervention – the drivers reactions.

As if anybody would intentionally drive at a concrete wall or under the back of a truck with out taking any form of evasive action such as braking and changing direction which would bring ESP EBD and ABS into play.

It would be more realistic if they had a look at reports and other evidence from real world crashes and asses the amount of damage to certain parts of the car as well as the severity of injury sustained etc.

IMHO: Anyone who [consciously] places the ANCAP results high up on their list of requirements etc when looking for a new car are in effect admitting that they are a bad driver or are expecting that they are going to have a severe crash whilst they own the car.

I own a Subaru Impreza; which as it turns out has a 5 star rating – but it wasn’t a factor which influenced my decision in any way

Wheelnut, ANCAP typically test 2-3 vehicles a month, or around 28 a year. Nowhere near the “100s of cars every 6 months” as you claim.

Considering that they are funded by 4 motoring associations, 6 state govts, NZ govt and 3 insurance companies, yes they are able, and DO fund the purchase of cars for testing.

Again, the pole test is at the manufacturers expense. Only these cars are allowed to be selected by the manufacturer.

If you look at ANCAP testing protocols there were some changes made around the time of VE launch which may actually have caught out Holden (and others). We’ll never know wether VE could have been 5 stars under the older protocols because they declined the pole test.

Anyway, what is the point to this disscussion? You’ve guessed at number of issues surrounding ANCAP and have been wrong. Let’s move on.

Facts:
ANCAP independently source cars for testing.
VE at launch = 4 stars (OK for it’s day)
VE re-engineered for MY2010 = 5 stars = good reward for good effort.

One more point – we always pick the vehicles – even for pole tests. In the case of pole tests (where the manufacturer pays for the vehicle and the test) we ask the manufacturer to provide a list of (say) 20-30 VINs from which we select one vehicle at random.

Mumble Duck,
I dont know what the go with no side airbags on the Commodore utes is.

Ive heard a couple of people diss Holden for it.

I have in fact driven an SS and SV6 VE Ute fitted with side airbags.

Now I checked on Holdens site, and from that it appears that you cant get side airbags as people mention.

That leaves me totally lost because 11 Months ago Just before I bought my FG XR Ute, I did infact test drive commodore utes with side airbags.

Can someone tell me what the go with that is because my head spins

Car dealers never tell porkies DesignEng… TVFPIC.