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Even I believe we are not seeing the entire picture in this situation.

One thing which doesn’t add up to me is that the Baleno and XC60 are not seen together in the same frame. For a second I almost felt like these might even be unrelated images.

I am a Baleno owner and recently, I was rear ended by a polo driven by a woman distracted by her phone. I was standstill and she just did not brake at all since she was looking at her phone. She was at a speed of 20-30 kmph when the contact between the two cars happened.

Unsurprisingly, the Polo had no damage except the front number plate (masked by me in the pic) was dangling due to one fallen bolt.

Sadly for me, there was substantial damage on the rear end of my Baleno. The picture shows only bumper damage, but the parts even beyond the bumper like the tail skirt, the floor on which the spare wheel sits, were damaged. The entire assembly had to be repaired for which it cost me INR 16k.

Now my question is, doesn't the Polo have crumple zones? Going by the popular crumple zone logic, the Polo's crumple zone should've absorbed some impact.

It simply did not happen because Baleno is weak enough to absorb all impact. And this probably happens even if the Baleno rear ends another vehicle, only in that case the impact is absorbed by the Baleno itself.

Now, although I used to vehemently defend the Baleno with the same crumple zone logic, this incident and the amount of damage definitely shook my faith.

PS: Yes, insurance was claimed and the lady was apologetic and bore the cost of my spendings and NCB loss.

This is exactly the reason I sold SWIFT ZDI (Gen2) within 2 years in 2013, where as Gen1 Swift I had it for 6 years. The Maruti cars have really gone down in terms of build quality, you can't build a car with kerosine tins from yesteryear and call it as well built and has good crumple zone.

Crumple zone needs to absorb significant amount of energy, without passing on to passenger cabin. In the case of maruti and new gen ford/vw and others, the body crumple fully on even with simple impact.

What matters in crumple zone design/quality is how much energy it absorbs before it fully crumples.

My CRV was rear-ended on 24-Dec by an youngster in a Ritz. Long story short - no license, no insurance, apparently the brakes were not working and his mother said that since he was in college, I should let him go. I let him, but after making his life a misery for half an hour so that he learnt his lesson.

The damage to my CRV. Nil.
The damage to the Ritz. Radiator busted. Bonnet busted. Bumper out. Coolant and other fluids pouring out all over the road.

If anyone is knowingly driving a car with non-working brakes they should be prosecuted for that alone!

I have experienced it just once in my life. The car's next journey was to the mechanic.

I suppose this old excuse has some possibility of being true with some of the decrepit trucks on the road. But even then it is probably just the first not-my-fault lie that occurred to the driver.

(If I extend my Straw-poll statistics to my family, I can increase that number to two brake failures. In fifty years)

A year ago I was driving my wife's Rapid on a rainy night in Mumbai, when I braked due to a traffic slowdown ahead only to have a Wagon R slam into the back of the Rapid. It was an Ola cab and the driver was fiddling with his phone. I got out fearing the worst, but what I saw left me speechless.

The Wagon R has slammed into my Rapid at 40 km per hour and yet the only damage was a misaligned bumper on one side and a small scratch (due to number plate) on the bumper. The Wagon R on the other hand was literally totalled. Ripped bumper, broken radiator, crumpled bonnet and fenders and a broken windshield. The Ola driver started crying on looking at the damage. I did not see a point in fighting so I comforted him and left.

Having worked in the automotive industry I know for a fact that Maruti removes critical reinforcements for the India models in order to save weight and cost (cheaper and more fuel efficient). Unfortunately for the Indian car buying public these two aspects are at the top of their requirements along with good resale and service which are also boxes ticked by Maruti.
While I appreciate the value I personally prefer safety at the top of my list along with fun to drive and comfort as my top 3 considerations.

I believe this thread is slowly becoming a Maruti bashing thread.

I'm not saying this because I own 2 Marutis at home.

Yes, even I'm not happy with the build quality.

But I guess we are deviating from the actual purpose of this thread.

I believe the discussion is in line with the purpose of this thread. As per my understanding, purpose of this thread is to share incidents and cases of accidents which serve as a lesson regarding do's and don't s of safe driving.

Vehicle safety is a key aspect of safe driving and when the largest automobile maker in the country makes cars that are not structurally sound, it does merit more than a passing discussion. This is my point of view. No offence meant.

In these low speed crashes, the angle of the accident and which parts of the cars actually make contact does affect the end result. It may be that you just got a little unlucky.

Well, my Polo once got rear ended by a Scorpio with a small bull bar up front. Initially I thought the damage will be high, but all the damage the Polo took was a crack on rear bumper (top side, below tail gate). While the Scorpio had the bull bar dangling from right hand side (probably it was a bad fit), bumper coming out of locks at right hand side and one fog lamp getting out of service.

I believe that crumple zones are not supposed to crumple like they are made of paper. Sadly, its the affair with most of the Maruti cars today.

Good to know that there was no damage to your car.
But please take it to the ASC and have the vehicle lifted and the rear inspected thoroughly for any internal damage/deformations to the chassis and any possible alignment issues to the rear-suspension.
Such things often go unnoticed when there is no visible damage on the sheet-metal/plastic parts, and we often write it off as a zero damage incident.

A few years back, I got similarly rear-ended by a slow moving WagonR.
There was no visible damage other than a small scratch on my bumper, and I too just wrote it off as zero damage.
But only a few days later did I open the boot-door and discovered that the boot-door lock would not engage again upon closing, even if I shut it with all my force.
So such minor things may go unnoticed on the spot, only to be discovered days or weeks later at the most unexpected occasions.

Thanks. I had it checked out when it went for a regular service. No issues. :)

Reading the last few posts here makes me wonder, how does MSIL get away with the "crumple zone" logic.

With the kind of deformation that MS cars take after contact, it is a miracle there's not a PIL against them yet.

In contrast:

Last month I was at a red light and a lorry rear ended my Polo. I was pushed into an i20 just ahead of me.
I was expecting a great amount of damage (a truck just rammed into the car), but when I got out, there was very minimal damage to the bumper, a broken taillight. While, my front number plate was chipped at most, the i20's bumper got a noticeable tear. Still better than a MS car would have fared.

Couple of pics at the site of the incident.

^ Real life instances like these provide priceless nuggets of information. Long have I wondered what crumple zones really mean; are we talking about paper tigers or brass tigers? The idea in my metaphor above is that brass is strong to the touch but remains brittle and could implode and safely protect an egg contained within such a hypothetical brass tiger...

To be sure, these are vital pieces in a jigsaw puzzle. There are more missing pieces yet; how about that head-on collision between a bicycle and Toyota Corolla in China? The bicycle's tyre had sliced through the front bumper of the Corolla. "Pedestrian safety", they said. I let out a long "hmmmmmm..." and scratched my head then.

Spotted similar accidents at the same spot. The place is in Dehradun on Haridwar bypass road. Earlier an Ertiga and today a Xylo hit and climbed on the divider. The place is poorly lit in the night and the divider is dark in colour. I don't know about Ertiga, but Xylo lost its front right axle along with some other damages.









In the video a crane is taking the xylo off the divider.

https://youtu.be/2ZKsy8Oo6QY