The Volvo XC90 is one of the oldest SUVs you can still buy; an old-school car, if you will, which benefits from the incremental improvements that have been brought to it over the years. These seem to have maintained it in the competitive end of the market, particularly in the area concerning safety.
The brand is synonymous with advanced safety features, and its largest and heaviest of offerings doesn’t disappoint in 2013, ten years after its debut, as it has just been awarded the Top Safety Pick + distinction by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), along with the recently tested Subaru XV Crosstrek and regular Impreza hatch.
It even went through the dreaded small overlap test well, and the testers concluded that in the event of such a crash, “injury measures recorded on the dummy indicate low risk of any significant injuries in a crash of this severity.” What’s interesting is the fact that not all that much work was done on the XC90 to bring it to this standard (allegedly), but if it’s true, it’s something that definitely looks good in Volvo’s resume.
When it comes to the two Subarus tested, we were not surprised that they too achieved the same result as the XC90, as their new models have started receiving the very high safety accolades. Moreover, the XV and Impreza received structural improvements for the 2014 model year, and they too showed that the driver would have been able to pretty much walk away from the same small overlap test.
All three vehicles scored a “Good” rating in all five tested categories (small overlap, moderate overlap, side, roof strength, as well as head restraints and seats).
By Andrei Nedelea
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