Safety

Sausage curbs aren’t very old in F1. For those of you wondering what they are, sausage curbs are the little ramps on the sides of the track. These curbs are there to discourage drivers from running wide, but lately, they’ve been under the scanner for not being particularly safe. Many people are in favor of it, but there’s also a large chunk that believes sausage curbs need to go. So, is it really a boon or a bane to drivers?

For the longest time, I’ve refused to acknowledge the Mach-E to have the Mustang spirit. But, it looks like I’ll have to change that now. The Mach-E just gave us solid proof that it has the Mustang DNA by failing a moose test that its rivals passed without breaking a sweat. The Mach-E swayed across and fishtailed its way into the cones at the first turn. The original Mustang must be smiling with tears in its eyes looking at the Mach-E.

Mercedes-Benz has come up with an armored version of the S-Class for the “heads of state and business leaders” called the S680 Guard 4MATIC. This automaker has been building such special vehicles since 1928, but it’s the first ‘Guard’ that features an all-wheel-drive system. It comes with a VR10 certification, which is the highest ballistic test rating that’s available for civilian vehicles. As for the price, you’ll have to shell out over $500,000 to own it.

The Ford Mustang is the world’s best-selling performance car, but just because it’s popular, that doesn’t mean it’s immune to mechanical issues and the recalls that come after that. Brace for some bad news, then, owners of the 2020 Ford Mustang. There’s a good chance that your muscle car will be recalled after Ford submitted documents to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) saying that more than 38,000 units of the 2020 Mustang could have a defective brake pedal bracket assembly.

The defect is largely contained to Mustangs with automatic transmissions; Mustangs with manual transmissions aren’t affected. It’s a tough blow for owners of 2020 Mustangs that are affected by the recall, especially if you live outside the U.S.

Back in May we brought you a fun little tidbit about how the C8 Corvette’s frunk acts as a speed limiter. Well, that was a fun twist, but the idea is that if the frunk isn’t securely latched, there are visual and audible warnings inside and the car’s speed is limited to 82 mph. Now, complaints are starting to show up in forums and directly to the NSHTA with claims that the C8 Corvette’s frunk is randomly opening at speed, blocking the view of the driver, damaging the vehicle, and — obviously – creating a very dangerous scenario.

If you’re from China and you’re in the market for a new four-door sedan, you might want to steer clear of the Volkswagen Passat. The German sedan of Chinese roots was recently subjected to a safety test by China’s C-IASI (that’s the country’s equivalent of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety), and to the surprise of many, the Passat recorded one of the worst performances of any car in the crash test.

A video of the C-IASI’s crashworthiness assessment shows the Passat undergoing several crash tests that end in a similar fashion: the sedan gets beaten up pretty badly. The Chinese Passat’s poor performance in the crash tests has bought into question the quality of the model relative to Passat models that aren’t built in China, including Passat models that have received good safety ratings in American crash tests. Is this a case of one Passat being much safer than the other?

Tesla has improved the build quality on the Model 3 vastly in the last few years, but there are a lot of wrinkles yet to be ironed out. This is more or less the story with the other products too. The cars suffer from paint issues, panel gaps, etc., but this incident perhaps tops them all.

In the U.K., a brand new Tesla Model 3’s steering wheel has fallen off while it was in motion. Quality has never been the company’s strongest suit, but this is outrageous and life-threatening.

This is not good news for Jeep. The 2019 Wrangler JL was recently tested by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) and it tipped onto its side, not once, but twice. This led to the model receiving a “Marginal” rating for the driver-side small overlap front crash test. However, the SUV did well in taking care of the driver’s space to protect the legs and feet, and the dummy’s movements were well-controlled. Will this news affect the sales of the popular Wrangler JL?

Have you heard of ’Death Wobble’? If you are a truck owner or truck enthusiast, you would’ve come across this term often. Jeep came under scrutiny for this, but Ford customers have also reported this issue on the Super Duty trucks.

There are multiple videos and complaints on the internet where the drivers experience violent jostling and shaking from the whole front end and it feels like the vehicle is just going to tear apart. To get an idea of how it feels, check out this video of a 2018 Ford F-350 experiencing a death wobble on the highway out of nowhere.

Tesla’s Smart Summon feature has become the Guinea Pig for a lot of YouTubers out there, as people can’t stop testing this technology under different circumstances and situations. Search it up online and you’ll see a lot more negative reviews than positive ones.

Although it’s a good technology, Tesla needs to fine-tune it to make it foolproof. In the meanwhile, a Model 3 owner, Kevin Rooke, decided to check this feature out by testing it on moving obstacles. He uses many props like a shopping cart, a soccer ball, and many things that can “roll” in front of the car. Do you think the Smart Summon can detect them all?

A lot of stress is being given to safety features in vehicles today. Although cars and SUVs use this as a selling point, trucks never really came loaded with a lot of safety tech. However, things are changing now for good, and automakers have upped their game. The 2020 Ram 1500 bagged the Top Safety Pick + award, something unheard of in the truck segment. There’s no doubt that the larger trucks are a lot more equipped than the compact trucks, but what is the benchmark in this segment, and which trucks have scored the best and the worst?

Pickup trucks these are days are not only about their hauling and towing capacities; they are fast, they often come with a luxurious cabin, and are loaded to the gill with high-tech features. So, why should they lag behind in terms of safety? People use trucks today as their daily driver, and family haulers, and they are concerned about safety. Automakers have started offering safety features, but which one tops the list and which truck scrapes the bottom of the barrel?

Jeep has named all its products like they have got to do something with survival, or living through the hard, tough life by overcoming the oddities of nature; be it the Gladiator, or the Renegade, or any other product, for that matter.

And, from the looks of it, the automaker is living through a similar ordeal in the real world. The pain in its ass is the big watchdog called the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The NHTSA is investigating the Jeep Wrangler this time for poorly welded frames that could affect the structural integrity of the SUV in the long run. In fact, this is not the first time this issue has come to light as it falls in line with another complaint on a similar trajectory from last year. Can Jeep catch a break?