Thursday 6 October 2011
A bad result for Chery sports utility in latest ANCAP ratings
The AA and NZTA have today announced a poor 2-star ANCAP safety rating for the Chery J11 compact sports utility vehicle.
The Chery sports utility’s low rating is the result of scoring 2 out of 16 for a frontal offset crash test by the
Australasian New Car Assessment Programme (ANCAP). The sports utility scored 0 in the pedestrian test.
The 2-star rating for the Chery sports utility can be contrasted with 5-star ANCAP safety ratings for both the Hyundai
i40 and the Holden Cruze Series II Hatch.
AA General Manager Motoring Services, Stella Stocks, says “new vehicles which perform this badly in safety crash testing
should not be allowed on New Zealand roads. A 2-star rating for a brand new vehicle is totally unacceptable, especially
now that most new vehicles are achieving 4 and 5 stars on a regular basis.”
“While Chery has announced the recall of the J11 sports utility to fix problems with the vehicle’s side impact
protection, its poor performance in the separate frontal offset crash test means the ANCAP 2-star rating will not change
anytime soon.”
Ms Stocks says “Hyundai and Holden are to be congratulated for their 5-star results and their ongoing commitment to
improving vehicle safety.”
The NZ Transport Agency’s National Manager Design Unit, Dennis Crequer, says the NZTA actively promotes 5-star ANCAP
safety ratings on new vehicles through its RightCar web site.
Mr Crequer says “in this day and age, there should be no reason why vehicle manufacturers through their design and
testing programmes can not manufacture vehicles with 5-star ratings. Ratings with 2 stars are simply not acceptable in
2011 regardless of price, and consumers should think about the safety tradeoffs they are making when buying vehicles
like the J11.”
ANCAP is supported by the all Australian and New Zealand motoring clubs, the Australian Government, the New Zealand
Government, all Australian state governments, the Victorian Transport Accident Commission, NRMA Insurance and the FIA
Foundation.
For more information and a full list of ANCAP vehicle safety ratings, go to www.aa.co.nz or www.nzta.govt.nz
ENDS