[thirdmainroad]

Latin NCAP has just released news that is embarrassing to Jeep. But it does go to show how deep the rot is within Jeep and perhaps even Fiat as a brand.

Jeep has been misleading customers in Brazil, Panama and many other countries about the Renagades 5 Star rating.

Even though NCAP clearly states that automotive companies can use NCAP star rating results for up to 4 years after publication date for marketing and advertisement purposes, Jeep continued to use the Renegades 5 star rating achieved in 2015, under two previous assessment protocols - for 8 years, even after many design changes had been made which would have seriously affected the crash test ratings.

Further, they claimed that their 2023 Renegade had a 5 star rating when in reality, it achieved only 1 star!



More about this on the Latin NCAP website here

I think this clearly shows the ethos of the brand - and why they have such bad service in India. Jeep just does not care about it's customers anymore. A dying brand which has lost hope of life and resurrection!

Where as Volkwagen on the other hand, seems to be trying hard to impress. Do you think this is to wash away the Emissionsgate scandal or genuine strides to make sure they remain the worlds top selling cars?

If it is to remain the world's top selling cars - what can we say about Maruti, which continues to show scant regard for safety, yet remains India's hottest?

[DRIV3R]

^^Any proof of their alleged "marketing campaign" you can share or you just posted based on the Latin NCAPs website?

I see an article from 2014 in their website and couldn't find anything else. Not sure if that can qualify for LNCAP allegations.

https://www.media.stellantis.com/em-...-5-star-rating


Also, the Taigun tested had ADAS, 6 airbags etc., which the basic variant of the Jeep missed. Any car having a half decent bodyshell but missing out on ADAS, curtain airbags etc will score a 0 or 1 at best with latest norms and that is a given and should come as no surprise.

[thirdmainroad]

Originally Posted by DRIV3R

^^Any proof of their alleged "marketing campaign" you can share or you just posted based on the Latin NCAPs website?

The proof is shared by Latin NCAP, right there on the attached picture.

Also watch the video below from 6:20

NCAP and other people invested in safety have been urging car manufacturers to incorporate all safety measures in all versions of vehicles. They argue that safety should be standard, and not optional extras. That is is why only base variants are tested.

Why do we make excuses for manufacturers and continue to patronise brands such as Maruti that show scant regard for safety and also try to defend brands that lie to us?

The Taigun tested had no ADAS.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5tC...nnel=LatinNCAP

[Kkumar]

In today’s world business ethics has taken the back seat. The only thing that matters is profit; hook or crook doesn’t matter. At the end of the day it’s the customer who is going to bear the brunt.

[Col Mehta]

Jeep should learn from Hyundai/Kia/Maruti - Why bother lying when you can simply choose not to care about safety. Just sell!

[BANDHAV]

Originally Posted by Col Mehta

Jeep should learn from Hyundai/Kia/Maruti - Why bother lying when you can simply choose not to care about safety. Just sell!

Absolutely, so much talk about safety ratings, safe cars but still 50% market share is with two companies with product portfolios full of unsafe cars.

The facelifted Seltos' marketing literature talk about best in class safety features, it is safe or not with those is for customers to figure out, what an eyewash.

[commander.sri]

It's an absolute pity to see a company of such a stature to indulge into such unethical practices.

Any Tom-Dick-Harry knows that in this tough consumer world, Trust once lost will never be recovered to the same level again let alone for a company like FCA which already has a pitiful state of market capitalisation.

They should have atleast learnt from the mess-up of VW with their infamous diesel-gate scandal ruining their reputation to the core globally.

[shifu]

Originally Posted by Col Mehta

Jeep should learn from Hyundai/Kia/Maruti - Why bother lying when you can simply choose not to care about safety. Just sell!

That is what they are doing with the models sold in India - Compass, Meridian are not tested. Yet, these are cars are sold at a premium.

[ron178]

For me the most interesting thing about this test is the sighting what appears to be a Citroën "C3" on the runway where the ESC tests are conducted



The Latin NCAP vs Stellantis drama (1 2 3 4) is certain to continue well into this year too, perhaps extending to all sub-brands. Fiat, check. Peugeot, check. RAM, check. Jeep, check. And frankly just looking at the C3's feature list one can estimate how it's going to turn out for Citroën.

This could also be an Indian one for GNCAP though (same test lab) - the eagle-eyed among you can try to figure it out.

Originally Posted by thirdmainroad

The Taigun tested had no ADAS.

It did. It had car-to-car AEB which was tested because it meets Latin NCAP's minimum %fitment requirement. But the Pedestrian AEB was not tested because it is not popular enough to make a meaningful contribution to sales.

This Renegade advertising issue is concerning but frankly things are just as bad in India especially with Tata and to an extent Renault advertising old ratings with yellow stars and no datestamp.

To be absolutely clear the drop in the Renegade's rating is not because Jeep have silently made changes to the car but rather because Jeep have NOT made any changes to the car since it was last assessed. Latin NCAP has since been through 2 protocol changes, one in 2016 (similar to GNCAP 2022) and one in 2020.

The issue is twofold, one, they should not have been advertising the rating past its expiration date at all, and second, when they did, it should have complied with Latin NCAP visual identity guidelines (blue and green stars and a test year). Not doing so can mislead consumers into thinking the car was assessed more recently than it really was. Instead Jeep chose to use yellow stars and a single rating, which is the format for 2020+ Latin NCAP ratings.

[anjan_c2007]

Originally Posted by thirdmainroad

I think this clearly shows the ethos of the brand - and why they have such bad service in India. Jeep just does not care about it's customers anymore. A dying brand which has lost hope of life and resurrection!

Where as Volkwagen on the other hand, seems to be trying hard to impress. Do you think this is to wash away the Emissionsgate scandal or genuine strides to make sure they remain the worlds top selling cars?

If it is to remain the world's top selling cars - what can we say about Maruti, which continues to show scant regard for safety, yet remains India's hottest?

(1) As regards the Jeep brand it's coffin could be just reaching the company in a hearse if it takes such a dubious route to misrepresent and cheat its customers.

(2) VW now as rightly deduced appears to be in the retreat mode and penance mood to use detergents for washing away its past sins.

(3) Maruti is blessed with lots and lots of bliss by excelling in fooling all its customers here in India all the time with those ZERO and ONE star NCAP rated, best selling cars. Even there's nothing in the print media debating the questionable safety. The media gets lots of advertisements from MSIL. Also, perhaps all these parties are yet to fully understand and appreciate what these stars mean, their implications and what terrible tragedies these can cause. Their Swift in 2011 scored 4 stars for the U.K. market, whereas even ten years hence in 2021 it scored ZERO here.

[itsbaman]

Originally Posted by BANDHAV

Absolutely, so much talk about safety ratings, safe cars but still 50% market share is with two companies with product portfolios full of unsafe cars.

The facelifted Seltos' marketing literature talk about best in class safety features, it is safe or not with those is for customers to figure out, what an eyewash.

In my opinion, it's not entirely the manufacturer's mistake that despite being the market leader they still have unsafe cars in their portfolio. It's the customer who needs to be blamed along with the auto journalism. Manufacturers are getting feedback that customers are not prioritizing safety, so why should they?
And how many times have we witnessed auto journalists condemning poor build quality? Seltos and Creta, despite having shameful build qualities in 2023, are top choices of customers as well as Auto Journalists. Pick any review of these cars on YouTube, build quality is given the least priority. Suzuki and Hyundai/Kia are more than capable of building safer cars, but they know that there is no need.

[Rocketscience]

I understand this scandal, but what I am not very comfortable about is NCAP's ever changing protocols after few years and making the 5 stars cars 1 star cars loses its credibility and ability to compare actual weak performing cars with ones that are scoring 1 star just because they miss a feature or two which NCAP feels absolutely necessary.

Even I as an enthusiast have no time to go through the fine print and read between the lines and understand their protocols in detail before making an informed choice, they will one day rate a car 5 star and in the same protocol rate a car like Swift 1 star, well fair enough and I make my mind that Swift is unsafe and I need to stay away from it, but one fine day they would change it all and make the previous 5 star car a 1 star car and a car like Swift is still a 1 star car, well, are they the same level of unsafe?
Not even a bit, but they are at the exact same star level which makes comparisons impossible and are also unfair to the manufacturers of safe 5 star rated cars and puts them into the same bracket as manufacturers like Maruti or perhaps Hyundai.

Has the Swift actually improved in safety as Maruti sometimes hints and would have been a 5 star car had it tested in some previous protocol but is a 1 star car because it misses one or two key features that were not at all important in 2015(since cars were scoring 5 stars without those then) but are absolutely absolutely necessary today, well, we will never know in this world of ever changing and ever confusing protocols by NCAP (which as far as I am aware can't even be compared amongst themselves today and a latin NCAP is different from global NCAP is different from Australasian NCAP)

What an absolute mess!
We may feel we are buying a safe car and we can follow general guidelines and can ignore brands like Maruti and Hyundai but the fact is we are all playing blind and never know what is what, for NCAP can tomorrow wake up and deem Tata Nexon and Mahindra XUV 700 as 1 star cars for some technicality.
(Not totally bashing them because they are on the side of safety and it is always a good thing, but their approach is totally ridiculous and there are no two ways about that)
I am not against updating protocols with time and constant improvements by manufacturers but there has got to be a better way to make these ratings credible, uniform and consistent.
A 0-100 km/h is a 0-100 km/h in every part of the world and the only inconsistency is some countries call it 0-60 mph which is pretty much the same thing, I know crash safety is a lot more nuanced than this, but what can a layman rely on? Hell, what can enthusiasts like us rely on?

P.S- Having said all that NCAP also mentions some changes FCA made to the car which doesn't make it equal to 2015's car, does this mean it has structurally weakened the car over the years? I would like to know more about this and this could constitute as actual fraud if they are doing this since then any rating is actually invalid since it is not even the same car anymore.

[ron178]

Stellantis say they no longer even produce the Renegade with two airbags in Brazil, even for export (domestic units have had six airbags as standard for quite some time). In typical provocative Latin NCAP fashion it appears that they tested the last remaining stock of old units sold in a (relatively) unimportant market just to make a big deal of Stellantis' attitude to safety. And didn't even explain to consumers in other markets that the result doesn't apply to them. And Latin NCAP's socials are getting defensive and posting long explanations that basically say "we did nothing wrong, we didn't lie" (we just hid the truth).

Originally Posted by Stellantis Brazil

"The Jeep Renegade produced in Brazil brings as standard, from the most basic versions, six air bags, lane maintenance alert, fatigue detector and autonomous emergency braking, which makes it one of the most complete vehicles in the segment in safety equipment. Only these equipments already completely distance the Renegade marketed in Brazil from that tested unit, which is not even more produced. Stellantis reinforces the commitment to the constant evolution of safety in its products and markets models with the most severe requirements of engineering, quality and approvals."

Source

Latin NCAP are losing trust with consumers who are fast realising that they no longer have their best interests in mind and are instead a tool for parts of the industry and a nuisance for the rest. Part of their explanation is:

The manufacturer refused voluntary evaluation to perform further crash tests on optional safety equipment to show its performance to consumers

which is a fancy way of saying Jeep didn't pay up.

I don't know who in their right mind would pay tens of thousands of dollars for additional testing of supposedly non-standard equipment that won't even be published as part of a separate rating but will simply be reported in the comments as additional information.

Look, I dislike Stellantis' attitude to safety as much as the next guy. Whether it's launching a C3 lookalike that barely even complies with safety legislation, or selling a 25-lakh SUV with two airbags and a lapbelt, they have made it clear that their idea of 'emerging markets' is people who want low-cost-low-safety products, which is frankly quite insulting. But what Latin NCAP are doing is quite unfair. It's fair only on paper where being a private body they can do whatever they want as long as it suits their intentions. But a consumer-centric organisation needs actual fairness that is not driven by emotion, and that goes well beyond making your own convenient rules on paper and then pointing out that you're sticking to them.

The reason I'm ranting is that GNCAP who test cars for India are run by the same small group of people, and what happened in Brazil and Argentina a few years ago is now starting to happen in India. The Suzuki Wagon R and Swift also had ESC when their results were published, but Maruti refused to have anything do with GNCAP or pay for ESC testing, so it wasn't tested, and the ratings tanked more than they would have otherwise. Now, GNCAP can argue that their protocols say a manufacturer needs to sponsor xyz additional tests should the car qualify for them. But is this really something the end consumer should be concerned with at all? I care about whether the car's safety feature x lives up to its claims, and I want an answer based on actual independent testing, not based on something that happened because of tension with the manufacturer.

The deal here is that these cars actually do fall behind the best in equipment and crashworthiness performance, so it is fair to criticise them a healthy amount. But GNCAP cashes in on this for attention and blows up its extent so much that consumers have become blind to any improvement in safety that doesn't affect their star rating. And on the flip side there are marketing teams and influencers overplaying the benefits of highly rated cars to mislead gullible consumers who will believe anyone who tells them they made a better choice than their neighbour or relative. And now, very concerningly, there is a group of people who actually believe deep down that their five star car can protect them in many more scenarios than it is actually designed to. Nobody really wins but the industry.

Originally Posted by Rocketscience

P.S- Having said all that NCAP also mentions some changes FCA made to the car which doesn't make it equal to 2015's car, does this mean it has structurally weakened the car over the years? I would like to know more about this and this could constitute as actual fraud if they are doing this since then any rating is actually invalid since it is not even the same car anymore.

Latin NCAP never explicitly said that; it appears to be an assumption by the OP. Comparing offset deformable barrier test results between 2022 and 2015 (when it was the only test conducted) the performance appears nearly identical with some negligible loss of points likely attributed to Latin NCAP toughening their interpolation criteria for chest compression vs score in 2016.

[ron178]

This guy has been a very vocal critic of Latin NCAP for some time and I don't agree with some of his other views about them, but this video (use auto-translated subtitles) pretty much sums up the drama.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEDR...UEbmNhcA%3D%3D

[ron178]

Originally Posted by ron178

And frankly just looking at the C3's feature list one can estimate how it's going to turn out for Citroën.

We might find out today at 7:30 pm as Latin NCAP prepare to publish a new result.
Latin NCAP to announce new crash test results - Latin NCAP, 12 July 2023

Latin NCAP will introduce a new crash test result on July 13th at 3:00 pm UK time
Join the live webcast at www.latinncap.com