IIHS finally starts testing roof crush

[John_H]

I'm just a little concerned about the applicability to real-world situations. Will a rollover present the kind of force applied in the tests or is this just some completely random application of static force? The roll-bar in the cabrio certainly won't be touched by the looks of the static test they did on the SUVs.

I've seen the movie/TV staged accidents where the front corner of a sedan's roof is effectively flat to the hood. Since we can't get that kind of deflection in the Smart, what are we really seeing tested here?

[forestacademy]

Here are the test results for the small suv's
Roof strength details: Small SUVs
Here are the results as posted on IIHS's site for Minicars.
Roof strength details: Minicars
Strange, The smart is not on the list. Its in a class all by itself and found here
http://www.iihs.org/ratings/roof/det...class.aspx?120

The smarts Strength-to-weight ratio is 5.41 with a ratio of 4 being required to get the highest Good raiting

The Volkswagen Tiguan is the only vehicle so far to best the smart with a 5.82 Strength-to-weight ratio

[BobDiaz]

In terms of the roof strength numbers, there's only one car that has a higher ratio than the Smart Car. All other cars are less than the Smart Car in terms of ratio. At 9,896 pounds, the Smart beats the Ford Escape, Mazda Tribute, Mercury Mariner, Honda CR-V, Kia Sportage, Hyundai Tucson, and all mini cars; Chevrolet Aveo, Honda Fit, Hyundai Accent, Mini Cooper, and Toyota Yaris BOTH in raw pounds supported and in ratio.


If you look at the Curb weight of any of the Small SUVs, you could stack two Small SUVs on top of the Smart and still not exceed the roof strength of the Smart.


Bob Diaz