The 2015 Kia Carnival has suffered a blow after only achieving a 4 star rating under new ANCAP testing protocols – Kia “extremely surprised”.
KIA MOTORS AUSTRALIA is today “extremely surprised” after the news its all-new 2015 Kia Carnival failed to achieve a five-star rating in ANCAP testing, achieving a 4 star rating.
In a statement to the media, Kia Motor’s Australia’s Chief Operating Officer Damien Meredith said the unexpected result had come as a great shock but the company will “abide by the umpire’s decision”.
“We are obviously extremely surprised by the outcome ANCAP announced today,” Mr Meredith said. “It was definitely unexpected as all indications from internal data and the car’s excellent performance in the North American Highway Safety Institute’s testing, led us to believe there would be a five-star outcome.”
Mr Meredith added that the data from the tests, which Kia has only just obtained, will be sent to the KMC R&D team for analysis and to formulate an engineering fix as soon as possible.
“The R&D team will now have an opportunity to fully explore and analyze this result, and once that process has been completed KMAu will be in a better position to comment further.”
ANCAP has blamed the Carnival’s performance in its frontal offset crash test and warned car makers from speculating in the media on likely outcomes ahead of ANCAP testing. Kia had suggested at the recent launch of the Carnival in Australia that it was confident of achieving a 5 star rating.
ANCAP boss Nicholas Clarke said, “It is always sensible to wait until testing is complete and an official ANCAP safety rating issued.
“Independent testing is the best way to determine the overall safety of a car. The inclusion or omission of one or more safety features does not necessarily translate into an automatic increase or decrease in star rating. There are a variety of factors which come into play,” said Mr Clarke.
“This reinforces the need for the continuation and broadening of independent physical crash testing. This will ensure manufacturers remain cognisant of the very foundation of car safety – a sound structure.”
According to ANCAP, “the frontal offset test – which simulates a head-on crash – revealed there is heightened risk of serious injury to the legs and feet of the driver. There was excessive movement of the park and foot brake pedals and significant footwell deformation. Dash components were a potential source of injury to the knees”.
ANCAP data revealed the Carnival scored 10.48/16 in its frontal offset crash test, 16/16 for the side impact test, 2/2 for the pole test, scored a ‘pending’ for pedestrian protection, and an overall rating of 30.48/37.
