Updated Ford Mustang safer, but still only three stars

Thursday, 7 June 2018

The Ford Mustang has a revised safety rating, but still performs poorly, only achieving 3 stars.

When the Ford Mustang received its first safety rating from the Australian New Car Assessment Program (ANCAP) it was a dismal two stars, reflecting its lack of electronic safety assists and poor rear seat occupant protection.

Ford upgraded the Mustang last year - with the new car arriving here earlier this year - adding autonomous emergency braking, forward collision warning, lane departure warning and lane keeping assist to the iconic muscle car. ANCAP has released a new safety rating based on Euro NCAP testing, adding an extra star - for a still pretty poor three-star rating.

'Improvements have been made to the Mustang's Safety Assist features as well as tuning to restraint systems,' said ANCAP Chief Executive, James Goodwin.

ANCAP has released a new safety rating for the revised Ford Mustang. And it's still not good.

These changes see an increased Safety Assist score of 61 per cent - improved from an original 16 per cent - and an increased Pedestrian Protection score rising from 64 per cent to 78 per cent.

**READ MORE

Side impacts are still problematic for occupants in the rear, with poor side airbag performance.

* Kiwi-market Mustang not so crash hot in ANCAP testing

* Ford Mustang GT earns its stripes with new technology

The Mustang improves drastically in pedestrian protection and safety assists, but still lags in occupant protection.

* Mustang is the best-selling sports car in the world (again)

* How Ford Mustang has steered through history**

Rear seat occupants are most at risk in the Mustang, particularly older children.

While the Mustang's pedestrian and safety assist scores have risen with the upgrade, its occupant protection hasn't changed: adult occupant protection remains at 72 per cent, while child occupant protection also still languishes at 32 per cent.

'Structurally, the revised Ford Mustang is identical to the Mustang we originally rated, meaning it still falls short of our expectations in the areas of Adult Occupant and Child Occupant Protection.'

'The inclusion of driver assistance aids such as AEB and lane keep assist is a definite step in the right direction, yet these upgrades have neglected to address the injury risk posed to rear seat occupants as well as whiplash protection,' Mr Goodwin said.

According to the report, a rear seat adult passenger suffered from excessive shoulder belt load in the 50kmh full width frontal crash test, while the 64kmh frontal offset test saw the front airbags not inflating sufficiently to prevent both the driver's and front passenger's heads from bottoming out through them.

Similarly, the 50kmh side impact test saw the 10 year old child dummy's head making impact with the C-pillar through the side airbag, losing it points there.

The six-year-old dummy achieved Good and Adequate ratings in all tests, but the poorer performance of the larger dummy was the main contributor to the Mustang only scoring 15.79 points out of a possible 49 points.

Overall, the 2018 Mustang delivered a 5 star result for Safety Assist and Pedestrian Protection, and a 4 star result for Adult Occupant Protection, however, the 3 star result for Child Occupant Protection limited the overall result to its 3 star rating.

'Safety is one of the highest priorities in the design of our vehicles at Ford Motor Company,' said Ford New Zealand spokesman Tom Clancy.

'The Mustang is a safe vehicle, equipped with advanced safety features with a structure designed to manage crash energy under a variety of crash modes.

'The vehicle has already proven its high level of safety in tests at the NHTSA's New Car Assessment Program (NCAP) in the US, where it earned a five-star Overall Vehicle Score and the US IIHS, coming close to earning a Top Safety Pic.'

Of course, the big question is has the Mustang's poor safety rating affected sales here? Clancy says it is difficult to say.

'The Mustang has proven a huge success in New Zealand, however the ANCAP rating is something we have worked on for 2018, with Autonomous Emergency Braking with Pedestrian Detection as standard on every Mustang.'

The three-star ANCAP safety rating applies to Fastback (V8 and EcoBoost coupe) variants built from December 2017. Fastback variants sold from December 2015 through to those built in December 2017 hold a 2 star ANCAP safety rating. Convertible variants are unrated.