ch4 Despatches: How safe is your car?
 

Despatches is on tonight (Monday) at 8 pm and I shall watch with interest.

Following the emissions scandal, it would seem that some manufacturers are misleading people over safety ratings. VW are at it again!

if you will miss the programme these links give the gist...

http://www.channel4.com/info/press/n...f-our-vehicles

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016...afety-ratings/

Why am I not surprised.

Mulder was right: trust no one...
 

I watched the program.

Cars are asymmetric and LHD and RHD variants my act differently in a crash. Most European cars tested are LHD. Manufacturers are trusted to test the other the other side and assure that it meets the same standard.

Manufacturers slow to react to problems and make a recall. For example, the Jeep grand Cherokee has a rear-mounted fuel tank that can catch fire in a collision. They knew about this from the eighties and it took them an astonishingly long time recall affected cars. Similarly, Vauxhall only recalled the Zafira after owners took to social media outraged at the numbers catching fire.

Euro ENCAP tests move on, so they expire. VW dealers mislead some Polo buyers that it had a 5 star rating when it was effectively unrated.

Can you trust the manufacturers? The evidence seems to say no.

I wouldn't trust them with new stuff nowadays,no matter which company.

Richard.
It's not just cars that are made badly.
Washing machines with plastic drums.
Chinese TV sets with the "CE" label put on the factory with no CE testing done.
13Amp moulded plugs with NO fuse.
Wall wart power supplies with no thermal fuses or cut out

I'm sure many will come up with more examples

As an Range Rover and Rover owner, I'm still quite impressive about the original strong build and safety design of Rover 75.

http://www.the75andztclub.co.uk/foru...041bbd7d2a.jpg

I found it surprising with the difference between sides using the American tests.
I had assumed that both sides of a car would be the same chassis wise.

As for trusting dealers, well it says it all on the programme. All they want to do is sell cars.

Nice to see our cars have a good 4 star rating.

It's all about greed and the worship of :-

The Great God Excessive profit!

We the consumer/customer do not matter excessive profit is ALL that matters. We are supposed to just pay up and shut up!

There is a tiny difference in the font the Chinese use for CE labels. They argue that it isn't a fake European Conformance label, because the font is different, and CE stands for Chinese Export :mad:

I think it was going to be a 5 star if Rover put the air bag on the b pillar as standard not as an option.

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