How safe is our S4?

[30mgs]

Guys

Watching 5th Gear last night I wondered how safe our S4's were??

For anyone who didn't see it they were on about the 4x4's doing the school run and asking how they fared against the safety-leading Espace. To cut a long story short their experiment was Espace vs Discovery (not the new one) at 40mph each - Espace won.

Heaven forbid anyone have a crash in their car, but I wanted to know if anyone has and what their thoughts were about the S4's safety characteristics.

A boring post perhaps but for many of us this is our 'family car', I've always felt pretty safe in it but having seen the outcome of 2 large cars impacting at relatively low speeds I'm wondering if anyone has any experiences they'd care to share to put my mind at ease!!

Cheers
Mike

[Nige_RS4]

I don't think the A4 got a particularly good rating when it came out - Audi did some work to improve side protection i.e. side airbags, but I think the original rating still stands.

ignore the photo, this is for the B5 chassis ... http://driving.timesonline.co.uk/articl ... 05,00.html

[arS4]

When looking for my S4, I had a look at the NCAP - not brilliant.

http://www.euroncap.com/content/safety_ ... 1=3&id2=14

It's only from the newer generation of cars, where the "stars" go up.....

Dan

[eddiecrawford]

ncap is very limited and only compares cars with others in that "class" ie size and weight.

real life is rarely like that, as there are plenty of trees, walls, lorries etc to hit.

this is the only "real life" statistics that i have seen. as reported to a swedish insurance company, so again how applicable to uk etc....?

http://www.folksam.se/engelsk/index.htm

go to "how safe is your car"

personally i like big cars with big crumple zones and good brakes. might not help me if i hit a wall, but at least i have control over that. (a6 2.7t)

i dislike the thought of my kids in a 4x4 on road, they are 3-5 times more likely to turn over (high centre of gravity) and they often have no crumple zones (a "real" chassis rather than monocoque). tho surely the latter is changing with all these school run ones being sold???

[derdle]

Dont forget that Discoveries and the like are very very poor performers in crashes. They tend to be built very ruggedly for their "off road" capabilities and tend not to have the same sort of crumple zones etc that normal cars have. Disco's etc have very strong chassis and therefore the other parts of the car give out in preference...including the passengers.

5th Gear or Driven did a fantastic test a few years ago on the same subject and they showed that many passengers would be injured/killed in a 4x4 type vehicle because the roof gives way (in preference to the flooring and the roof caves in on the heads of the driver/passengers.

Paul

[shineydave]

Kate Moss's favourite program, Top Gear, did a similar study, they also had a 4x4 which showed the A pillers starting to collapse after a 40mph impact. one of the members of the audience had a new A4, i assume a B6, they said it was slightly better than average. it seems the main issues with the A4 were the lower dash moving which could cause knee injuries and the side impact protection which i would think could be improved with the optional side curtains. unfortunately i doubt if you'll ever get a true answer as to how safe our cars are until it's too late. being realistic there's plenty of kit in our cars to prevent you getting into an accident in the first place which i doubt is taken into account when they compile the NCAP ratings.

[s4-99]

I got knocked off the M5 by a French lorry driver 2 years ago. I was driving at the time a B5 A4 1.8 20v. I went spinning acrooss the M'Way @75mph crashed through bushes and little trees, through a fence over a ditch and up an embankment. The car was a write off, i suffered shock and bad whiplash.

I feel very safe in my S4. IMO if it was'nt for the fact i was driving an Audi it could have been a different story.