Shredder

I assure you my own primary concern is safety.

I was involved in a severe head-on accident (with a 20 year old 4x4) back in August in my four-star rated [without re-engineering] Audi A4 30S. Thankfully, Everyone was OK, but the car looked significantly worse than the one in the picture below.

http://www.euroncap.com/content/safety_rat...hp?id1=3&id2=88

I honestly don't care about the effect of these NCAP results on E60 residual value at all.

I do also care, to a lesser extent, whether BMW has the integrity to be honest and open with their customers.

Back to the Audi..... I prefer my E60 by a long way

geneclark

Clive,

I'd say that we assume things most of the time, most theorys are based on assumptions and then supported by "facts".

I was assuming that the side impact test may have caused the e60 problems (as probably the frontal test), this was based on the facts regarding the modifications done. In the Euro NCAP report the following is stated about the e60 test:

It achieved a four-star rating after Euro NCAP allowed frontal, side and pole retests following improvements to the car?s steering column, footrest, door trim, door latch, airbags and software.

IMHO, these are not minor modifications (as in making the seat belt chimer louder). I'm actually surprised that BMW was allowed to do these modifications, before the result was published.

I do agree however it would be better for each of us to be able to draw our own conclusions regarding the safety of unmodified cars based results from the first test.

My prime concern is safety, not residual value. I believe that only really horrid crash- test results combined (with real-world horror stories) would make an impact on the market.

Iceman

"Money makes the world go round..."
Amazing what money can do...

ISUK

I just looked at the X5 on the NCAP site and read the following: -

"From June 2003 the X5 has an intelligent seat belt reminder system fitted for the driver and front seat passenger to buckle up their seat belts. As a result, the X5 has been awarded extra points that now gives the car the five star crashworthiness rating."

So by adding a seat belt chime system NCAP awarded an extra star. This surely casts doubt upon how their scoring system actually works as it doesn't actually improve the technical ability of the car. If you decide not to wear a seat belt you immediately increase the risk of further injury due to lack of restraint.

Out of interest does anyone know if the frontal airbags in US and European spec cars differ? I believe they normally do due to the lack of seat belt laws in all US states which means that US spec cars require larger airbags. I may be out of date on this though.

Shredder

Welcome geneclark

Iceman

That makes it even more important to reaad the first test results!
But... If a seat belt chime system gives you another star (?) the E60 would still have three and would have even rec eived two before. I think the X5 was so close to the next higher rating that this just simply made the difference... Anyways, the E60 was modified on the steering coloumn, doors, footwells...
No matter how EuroNCAP works... Why these mods if the car is safe?

John W

""No matter how EuroNCAP works... Why these mods if the car is safe? ""

Marketing. In the US, if you don't get good crash test ratings, you end up on 60 minutes, and nobody buys the car. The manufacturers all clearly have responded, including BMW's letter in this thread, that they basically believe that their car is safe, that the test isn't accurately representative of reality, but due to the public's reliance on these tests, they all go back and modify their products to do well on these tests.

My opinion is that manufacturers design cars they believe are safe, then make DARN sure they pass the crash tests. Here in the US, we see this all the time. The car fails the frontal offset test, the manufacturer says, "accidents like that don't happen, but we've made changes anyway" and the public is happy. Do minor changes that are specifically made to improve lab testing really improve overall safety, or could they in theory have effects in other types of crashes and adverely impact safety?

Iceman

I think that the changes they made are waaaay too expensive and extensive too be for marketing reasons only.

John W

I guess it depends on how bad they thought the impact of the test results would be on sales. We've seem them be pretty bad.

The craziness over the unsubstantiated claims of magic accelerators almost killed Audi in the 80s. They had a lot of work to do to fix public opinion.

kscarrol

Have to join back in. Sounds like Iceman has found out exactly what the changes made were!!! Let's hear them, or are you assuming that they would be too extensive and expensive? Sorry, Ice, can't pass up a little dig!

I feel like I'm beating my head against a wall, as I'm sure Iceman and others do. We are clearly in two camps as far as this disagreement goes. There are those who seem to believe or at least imply that the early, pre-modification version of the E60 is unsafe. That 3 stars equals unsafe. Or at least they think it has the potential to be unsafe. I think the real issue is not whether the car is actually safe or not, it's just not as safe as folks expected out of their very expensive BMW purchase. I now that sounds like an obvious statement, but everytime you guys imply the car is unsafe in some way, the facts are just not there to support you. Again, if the car had gotten just 1 or 2 stars, which in my book is failing grade, then the car is unsafe in someway. Do you have every right to be disappointed over the 3 stars, YES! But again the car is not unsafe. The other camp, which as you can tell if you've read this far before hitting reply, I'm in, either thinks the US testing body is not totally off base in its testing and that therefore the car is safe, or that the three stars is acceptable, not great, but acceptable. And I am in no way trying to turn this in to some US vs. Europe debate, and I know the tests likely differ in some way, but no one seems to be able to articulate what those differences are.

The only suggestion I can make is that we have always prided ourselves on how civil we were with each other (and our guests), but this thread is begining to take on RF tones. How about until we have some real facts as to the changes and what BMW is going to do about us pre-mod owners, we let this issue simmer on the back burner.