Hey guys,

being a safety cautious person, I like to see what kind of crash test rating my cars have. The X308 was never tested in the NCAP so no way of a useable comparisson, but I found this video of a test site in Austria:


The X308 (looks in good spec so no deathtrap in the first place) is accelerated to 110 kph (nearly 70 mph) and then rammed into the back of a standing bus (standard single decker). The crash outcome is breathtakingly bad! No, I am not kidding...

I know the X308 is based on the X300 and that is based on the XJ40. The XJ40 had good results as it was launched. Not as good as Volvo had (nobody had that nor even has it today) but it was good for the day. After getting into the X300, the body had some slight reinforcements in the doors and the front airbags. Still, for the time it was still rather up to date.

But that crash is really bad. The passenger would have NO chance of surviving the crash. The driver would be badly injured. Rear seat occupants would have bad injuries too...

Sure, a crash at 110 kph seems far fetched... But 110 kph is a standard speed here in Germany. Meaning even on country roads people (incl. me) drive at 110 kph and more sometimes... I've seen cars of the same age hit a truck at the same speed and look A LOT better than that... I'd say Jaguar has the front structure TOO soft.

Then again, and that has always been the issue with RWD vehicles, the engine can't absorb the impact force. A FWD car with transverse mounted engine will take a HUGE amount of impact and spread more load through the main rails. A RWD setup allows the main rails to give in earlier. If you hit a tree head on exactly in the middle, you'd ram the engine into the interior and miss both main rails of the car...

Do I feel less safe? Not really. But I feel more need to get the rust removed ASAP!

 

Holy **** that is bad.

 

Totally frightening.

 

Note the jag went UNDER the bus, and the bus paneling just absorbed and shriveled up increasing the depth of penetration, that is what led to the force of impact going into the roof and windshield - i'm not sure any car would do better at 110k/70m hitting something at the height of its roof line.

The only danger here is the jag is lower to the ground than most other cars. It's also a rare scenario to hit a stopped bus at highway speed, much more likely to hit a moving car or a static object on the side of the road that impacts the vehicle's full vertical surface area.

Only the very newest cars that use reinforced frame rails through the pillars and roof would do better, ironically, the Smart car has these, lol...

 

Sure, it is an extreme situation, but there are enough examples of this crash style here in Germany...

110 kph difference in speed is easily done. Driving at 200 kph and hitting the rear of a truck - a daily occurance.

A head on collision with another car would show, that the X308 is still too soft. If a Volvo 960 when crashed with an equal age BMW 7 series looks dreadful, then the Jag will look a lot worse. Don't get me wrong, I love my XJ8, but I am down tomearth with the things it can do and can't do... It won't protect me as well as a modern car. Nor will it be as good as an equally old Volvo. The construction is just way too old. Jaguar held on to the XJ40 base far too long. 1986-2003. Nearly 20 years... In the car world that is normally 3 generations of cars... And it was built upon records/plans od a 70ies car... So it is rather understandable, that the car is what it is...

You will always find that tests only show a fraction of what can happen. I crashed my old XJ6 (X300) about 2 years ago and that was no normal impact... I got out. The body was rather straight. Just loads of body panels were damaged...

 

Load of rubbish! That car was a high mileage wreck that repeatedly failed MOT on serious issues relating to corrosion. I've had a huge side impact crash in a 308 where I impacted into a tree at around 40-50mph and I walked away and did a 12 hour shift at work.

Here's the MOT history for that car.

 

There was a similar looking video of an XJ40 crash test into a wall at 60mph where the thing just folded like an accordion... However, the engine and various other accessories had been removed, and the frame had been cut in strategic places for the crash, for the sake of "art" or something. So that's not a very valid comparison.

Someone here mentioned a while back that for the years it was in production, in the UK, the x308 was statistically safer in crashes than most Volvos of the same generation. Also a bit of misleading info, maybe someone can clarify, but neat to know.

But for something that is relevant, an old Volvo, similar MY as the x300/x308, in an offset crash test with a modern subcompact. Boom happens at about 5:20

 

How can you say the engine in the XJ40 was removed when you can clearly see the tranny and engine crush the prop shaft!?

54 seconds in, you can see the transmission pointing out below.


That crash test of the 940 vs. a Modus shows that Volvos have a weak spot too. The Modus smashes PAST the main rails (you can see it passed the engine and therefore passed the rail...) into the front wheel. Straight through into the interior... That shows, that the Modus is safe but it doesn't show that the Volvo was also safe - as it was launched - I've had enough of them

 

Well, that may seem legit, I don't want to discuss that, but how many of these cars are still rustfree? I highly doubt that there are many out there. I mean mine has some rust in some areas, but isn't a rust bucket. The subframe - just on a side note - would not have much to do with the crash, as the bolts aren't strong enough to prevent anything from twisting nor is the axle a "main carrying body panel". Being rubber bushed it is as important as the antennae The body is the part, which carries the impact and even if the brackets were rusting away, it is no really thing.

Side impact is a different thing. The crash is on purpose a slight overlapping one, as that is the most common type of crash (a head on crash is rare, because reflexes make people pull away of the danger zones).

We have to accept, that our cars AREN'T tanks and AREN'T industructable... And especially as corrosion is getting more and more by the day - and we know that these cars do rust and that nastily! - the results won't be getting any better...

A few examples...:



So I highly doubt, that all of our cars are dangerous things, but there basically can't be a rustfree model out there. I mean, my sill had a hole it in. Cut the hole out, and there was a hole 3x the size INSIDE the sill. I would have never seen that there without the hole outside... And we know, sills are important parts of a car.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to call our cars death traps. They are useable cars with a good safety rating. BUT they aren't superior.

When the XJ8 (X308) was launched in 1997, the Volvo S80 was launched the same year. The S80 had 4 stars in the Euro NCAP at the time (which was the highest possible rating: Official Volvo S80 2000 safety rating 5 stars were introduced later). The X308 wasn't even tested! The earliest car in the NCAP with a Jaguar badge was the 2002 X-Type! The 5 stars were I think introduced in 2000... Official Jaguar X Type 2002 safety rating

 

Any crash testing 40mph or higher into a fixed object is considered severe. So yes, crash testing at ~70mph will tend to be spectacular.

 

Most cars now are designed to perform well on the 40 mph offset crash. Note that at 70 mph, the kinetic energy is roughly 3 times greater.

 

I guess I stand corrected on the engine being removed, didn't look at the video very closely.

At the end of the day, the safety issue is probably going to be true for any 20 year old car vs a modern car, be it Volvo, Jaguar, etc...

 

I bought mine specifically because it was a summer car only and still has absolutely no rust. STILL, it's gonna do poorly, like the XJ8 roadster you just posted. These are dated cars. FUN, but dated.

Those are Chinese car bad looking results on those cars.

 

Absolutely. I am fully aware of that... But I was just shocked at the results that car showed. It just hurts an awful lot to see.

Heck, it is better than exploding like a Ford Pinto

 

The same day(2014) I had new carpet installed in a X308 it came dislodged & pinned the accelerator down. Rendering me going into a Post Office lobby, the car was actually inside the building. I walked away & drove the car home from the tow facility. So in this case British steel > concrete & glass lol.

 

This is a horrible thread and I hope they shut it down.
These videos are horrible.

 

By virtue of my profession I've been on many crash scenes from low speed to high speed with tremendous impact. I've seen cars that are junk sustain terrible collisions that had minimal injury to the occupants in a cheap car. I've also seen the same with the expensive counterpart. My point is that in most cases any vehicle traveling at a high rate of speed into a stationary object will cause tremendous damage to the vehicle and occupant. Especially when the vehicle travels underneath it. This is regardless of make/model.

 

Yup, it is rather horrible, but the reality.

We all complain that cars are getting uglier and heavier, but it is partly caused by improved safety measures on the car structure.
Still, I don't think any 2017 car should do much better in the bus impact, the way the Jaguar not only collides, but also slides under the bus frame is about the worst what can happen to a car and its passengers.

Unfortunately this is the reality, more than the square concrete block of concrete used during testing.

Just drive safely guys!

 

Cars used to be made to survive a 30 mph impact, just. Now with more stringent testing, they are designed to survive 40 mph, into an offset block, which is tougher than into a wall.

You can see in videos of the 40 mph offset testing, that this is really pushing the limits.

The problem is, the design of the crumple zone is a compromise. It has to be optimised for a certain speed, which is now 40 mph. It used to be 30 mph. That means that you now get more of a shock to the passengers in a 30 mph crash than before, as the crumple zone is only partially used up.

If you designed a 70 mph crumple zone, which is 3 times the energy of a 40 mph accident, the impact to the passengers in a 40 mph crash would be much greater than it is now, and potentially lethal.

The most common crash speeds are the lowest. So is it worth increasing the chances of injury to passengers in lower speed crashes, which are more common, so that survivibility of very rare high speed crashes is increased?

The correct conclusion from the first video is that it's a really bad idea to crash into the back of a bus, and it should be avoided. The way to avoid it is to pay attention.

Did you know that deaths on US roads increased dramatically last year? The NHTSA puts it down to complacency. Cars get faster, smoother, quieter, and safer, yet road deaths go up. That's because it's the nut behind the wheel that causes them, and they are paying less and less attention, with more and more distractions, and feeling safer and safer.

Drive safe.

 

Texting, ...hands down, ...unimportant texting.
I drive past these morons regularly and am simply enamored at the lack of respect for their fellow driver ..looking down and doing 70 or faster....that AT&T commercial from a few months back of the woman just having to have to read about her stupid precious snowflakes pics on Facebook and crashes into the truck, ...is an excellent example. I see so many rear end crashes nowadays, I can only guess they are a result of it. Because I usually see a younger person, teenage or early twenties standing by the offending car.
IT CAN WAIT PEOPLE!!