Euro NCAP: Suzuki Ignis earns 3 & 5 stars (with safety pack)

The international-spec Suzuki Ignis has been crash tested by Euro NCAP. The standard car, which was equipped with front, side and curtain airbags and seat belt pretensioners with load limiters, earned 3 stars. Meanwhile, the Ignis with safety pack, which adds a Dual Camera Brake Support system, scored 5 stars.

The standard Ignis showed a stable passenger compartment in the offset deformable frontal impact test. It earned 79% in both - adult and child protection. Tests on front seats indicated good protection against whiplash injuries in case of a rear-end collision. The standard model didn’t have any advanced collision avoidance system, and hence earned 25% in the safety assist rankings and 67% in the pedestrian protection.

However, the Ignis with Safety Pack gets a low-speed autonomous emergency braking as part of its optional 'Dual Camera Brake Support' system. This system performed well under test conditions and avoided all collisions against a stationary car. This helped the adult occupant protection to increase to 87%, pedestrian protection to 77%, while the safety assist rankings rose to 60%; thus earning the two extra stars.

The Euro NCAP crash tests include various impact tests to award safety rating to new cars. The frontal impact tests involve 40% of the width of the car striking a deformable barrier at a speed of 64 km/h. In the full width test, 100% of the width of the car impacts a rigid barrier at 50 Km/h. The side impact test involves a mobile deformable barrier striking the driver side door at 50 km/h. There is also a pole test in which, the car is propelled sideways at 32 km/h into a rigid pole. Readings from the crash test dummies are recorded, along with the impact on the car's shell to award safety ratings to the cars.