I feel obligated to respond.
I do not know the source of your information but,
IIHS is the captive creation of insurance companies. While I am sure they do good work, I have no reason to seek out their results. They have to the best of my knowledge not tested the Solstice. Having not tested it, it would be natural for them to not have a rating. I fail to understand why you mention this as a high negative.
The NHTSA has tested the Solstice and rates it as
Front Crash
Driver side 4 stars of a possible 5
Passenger side 4 stars of a possible 5
Side Crash
Driver side 4 stars of a possible 5
Passenger side not rated
Roll over
Driver 5 stars out of a possible 5
There are multiple documented examples of drivers taking the car past its limits and ending up upside down in a ditch. And crawling out uninjured.
The NHTSA and insurance companies disagree with your statement.
There are multiple instances described on this and the Sky forum of various collisions at all speeds up to freeway limits where cars were totaled and passengers walked away with none or minor injuries.
The cars are very stable in corners. They include multiple safety systems including stability control which enhance their safety and help protect the driver from human error. Yes, if the operator chooses to take direct action and disables the safety systems then bad results can occur. But the same can be said about many human controlled activities. In a trivial example, one might walk off the roof of a building and be injured, does that imply that you should deny your children access to buildings?
Your conclusion about being more likely to be ejected is in my experience also not based on actual data. Grandma riding in the back of a minivan without her seatbelt is at greater risk than a person riding in a Solstice with their seatbelts in place.
Yes, any safety system can be circumvented, however since neither you nor I have any personal knowledge concerning the people involved in this incident, it is in my humble opinion the height of arrogance to make negative assumptions about them based on no knowledge.
The car is NOT unstable in corners. This is why it has been so successful in competition and is so much fun to drive. Can it be driven beyond its limits? Sure. But hammers are more dangerous in the wrong hands. Should we deny children access to anything that might be dangerous if used improperly?
I suspect that you have some personal experience that is motivating your statements and respect your right to be wrong in this instance.
But as I say, in your above statements about the Solstice you are in my opinion in error.
:grouphug:
I may be a newbie here, but you are misinformed about these ratings. The NHTSA rollover rating is a rating of the likelihood of a vehicle to rollover,
not the likelihood of being injured in the event of a rollover. The car is not likely to roll over because it is has an extremely low center of gravity (being relatively low and weighing quite a lot), but that has nothing to do with you surviving if it does roll over. Do some reading about NHTSA testing.
The Solstice received a 4 of 5 star NHTSA crash test rating which is fine for a convertible, but is lower than virtually every major-maker sedan on the market today or during the production years of the Solstice.
The IIHS has a much stricter set of criteria for crash testing than the NHTSA, which is why high IIHS ratings are harder to obtain.
Obviously the IIHS did not rate the car because they did not test it, not sure why you would feel the need to make this distinction.
My point is not that the Solstice is dangerous for a convertible sports car. It isn't more dangerous than the Miatta, for example. My point is that its dangerous for kids with no sense of responsibility, compared to more reasonable alternatives like an Accord or Corolla. You know, 4-door sedans that have things like side airbags, a roof and far less ability to propel you to dangerous speeds quickly.
The idea that there are "multiple documented instances" of people walking away from Solstice crashes is absolutely, 100% irrelevant. There are documented instances of people falling out of
airplanes and walking away without injury. That is called
anecdotal evidence, and insurance companies care about it about as much as they care about our forum posts.
These cars are
not stable in corners unless you have added chassis bracing such as the z0k package, Venom Brace, Backbone, etc. Its absurd to claim that the base car or GXP is stable in corners when it clearly is not in all situations.
Its stable for corners in daily driving. Its stable for bends taken at the appropriate speed. However, once you kick the rear end out a bit (which you WILL do if you are a kid who thinks he's invincible) it becomes unstable rather quickly and it can get away from you.
Of course I have personal experience. I drive the car, just like you. I can feel the chassis twisting in the corners. And if you don't have any front/rear bracing and backbone, then you can feel it too.
These cars are successful in competition because they brace the hell out of them, install splitters etc. I
love this car. Its very well-designed and can be made into a hell of a race car, but its
completely unsafe for young drivers.
I can't believe I'm getting pushback on this. Do you think its safer to drive a sedan with 20 airbags and a reinforced roof that has a 0-60 time of 12 seconds? Or a convertible without side airbags and a 0-60 time of 5.5? Talking safety here. Its a no-freaking-brainer.
Fully agree with Rob on the safety comment push-back. May not be the
safest car
ever. But certainly safe enough. There used to be a comprehensive video of crash testing the Sol, which showed how remarkably it absorbed the damage. Unfortunately that video seems to have been removed and all I can find now are a couple of very short crash vids.
How safe is "safe enough" when it comes to your family? Because its very easy to demonstrate (as I just did) that almost any sedan on the market is far, far, safer and less expensive than a Sol.
