Now that manufacturers have started bracing and adapting their cars for the very difficult small overlap crash test introduced by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), it seems to be paying off in spades.
For Nissan, its Sentra sedan didn’t do so well back in 2013, but with the latest update of the model, it’s now been awarded the Top Safety Pick rating.
The 2015 Sentra fared much better thanks to a modified and strengthened A-pillar as well as a longer side curtain airbag to go with it. These two measures were taken to prevent severe deformation to the point where the driver’s head misses the frontal airbag – this is what used to happen before the car was updated.
To give you an idea of how much extra strengthening it has, the maximum intrusion at the lower door hinge pillar dropped from 13 inches to 5 inches in the 2015 MY.