Chevrolet Colorado Earns "Good" Crash Test Scores

[Ming]

Government releases new vehicle crash test ratings
By Tom Incantalupo
Staff Writer

There was good news Thursday for Ford, Nissan and some of their customers: the redesigned Ford F-Series pickup and Nissan's also-new Quest minivan earned perfect scores in federal frontal crash tests.

General Motors' new compact pickups, the Chevrolet Colorado and GMC Canyon earned good but not perfect ratings from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

The F-Series, long the nation's best selling vehicle, was the only 2004 pickup to win a perfect rating in the frontal test, in which vehicles with instrumented test dummies aboard are tugged into a fixed barrier at 35 pmh. Side-impact tests were not conducted on the F-Series, because of limited resources, the agency said.

The ranking is based on the performances of six F-Series variants, in three cab styles and in two- and four-wheel drive. Each earned five out of a possible five stars for their protection of front occupants against serious injury, as did the Quest.

Six other 2004 minivans also have earned the five-star rating in the frontal tests -- Ford Freestar and Mercury Monterey, Honda Odyssey, Kia Sedona, Mazda MPV and Toyota Sienna.

The previous generation F-Series, still being sold as "Heritage" models, earned four stars for protecting the driver and five stars for its passenger protection.

The Nisssan is scheduled later to undergo the side impact test, in which vehicles are struck on the driver's side with a 3,000-pound barrier at 38.5 mph -- intended to simulate an intersection crash.

The GM pickups, both four-door "crew cab" variants, earned four out of five stars in the frontal crashes and in their protection of the driver in the side crash. They earned five stars in protecting a passenger seated behind the driver.

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The GMC Canyon and the Chevrolet Colorado both earned four stars on NHTSA's two frontal tests and on its side-impact test on the passenger side. Four stars means the chance of serious injury is between 11 and 20 percent.

The Canyon and the Colorado earned five stars on NHTSA's side-impact test on the driver's side.

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Nice Crew Cab shot

[awalbert88]

This is good news for pickup buyers, but also re-affirms that minivans are still the safest vehicles on the road in an accident. So please stop buying gas-guzzling SUVs when you don't need 'em. Sheesh.

Does anyone know how the Silverado has done in these tests? Or the Ram? Might be interesting to compare with the F-150, although my guess is that like the previous generation F-series, the two main competitors probably also had 4-star ratings.

[mbaluch8]

I don't know about the silverado or ram, but I say if you want to buy the biggest suv on earth, go right ahead - its your money and it is no one elses business how you spend it.

[Jay]

Originally posted by awalbert88@Mar 13 2004, 12:16 PM
Does anyone know how the Silverado has done in these tests? Or the Ram? Might be interesting to compare with the F-150, although my guess is that like the previous generation F-series, the two main competitors probably also had 4-star ratings.

The Silverado Regular and Extended Cabs both got 4 stars for driver safety and 3 stars for front passenger safety in frontal impact test ratings. It appears to have performed poorly in comparison with all other trucks they tested. This can probably be attributed the age of their design. I'm sure it will improve when the truck is eventually redesigned in 2010, 2015, 2020, or whenever they get around to it. Here is the link to the site:

http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/NCAP/Cars/2004Pkup.html