2017 Mazda CX-5 wins IIHS 2017 Top Safety Pick + Award!

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Dr Kev

Member
:
2016 Mazda CX-5 Grand Touring
So, the test results are in and the new CX-5 turned in an excellent performance!
http://www.iihs.org/iihs/ratings/vehicle/v/mazda/cx-5-4-door-suv /2017

One of the measures that is especially noteworthy is the headlight performance! The CX-5 excelled, and you can get that level of performance for a pretty reasonable price point. This contrasts with some competitors that require an expensive optional package or require you to spend thousands more to get a Touring trim with its LED headlights!
 
Dr Kev said:
So, the test results are in and the new CX-5 turned in an excellent performance!
http://www.iihs.org/iihs/ratings/vehicle/v/mazda/cx-5-4-door-suv /2017

One of the measures that is especially noteworthy is the headlight performance! The CX-5 excelled, and you can get that level of performance for a pretty reasonable price point. This contrasts with some competitors that require an expensive optional package or require you to spend thousands more to get a Touring trim with its LED headlights!
Click to expand...

awesome news!

I have very mixed feelings about the IIHS headlight test.
On one hand it's awesome that they are testing the headlights..

But I'm afraid that as automakers start to cater to the test we'll all end up getting blinded.
Sure.. they check for glare, but they do so with an unloaded car with perfectly clean headlights.
Most automakers aim lights to limit glare even when the car is loaded, but that results in a poor score on the test.
If they aim the lights higher the score will go up, but the car will blind people when loaded.

IMO only cars with leveling (either automatic, or via a knob inside the car) should be able to score well on this test.
 
Dr Kev said:
So, the test results are in and the new CX-5 turned in an excellent performance!
http://www.iihs.org/iihs/ratings/vehicle/v/mazda/cx-5-4-door-suv /2017

One of the measures that is especially noteworthy is the headlight performance! The CX-5 excelled, and you can get that level of performance for a pretty reasonable price point. This contrasts with some competitors that require an expensive optional package or require you to spend thousands more to get a Touring trim with its LED headlights!
Click to expand...
This is great news indeed.

Just a warning though. Soon other people will be coming into this thread saying how the new CX-5 still sucks because of the NHSTA test results. I say don't mind them.
 
NHTSA awards stars based on relative performance to other vehicles in that class. This is a good thing because it encourages makers to continuously improve vs designing "to the test". It can be a little confusing though because it might appear that a new model year performs worse than a previous year when it's because the competition caught up.
 
piotrek91 said:
IMO only cars with leveling (either automatic, or via a knob inside the car) should be able to score well on this test.
Click to expand...

All trims except the base GX here in Canada have automatic headlight leveling. Unsure if it has manual leveling like my last Mazda 3 did.

Solid results for sure
 
Studum said:
All trims except the base GX here in Canada have automatic headlight leveling. Unsure if it has manual leveling like my last Mazda 3 did.

Solid results for sure
Click to expand...

There has been a steady and wonderful change in headlights since the Government stopped requiring sealed beam (1984) Before that, they were so bad that many of us installed aftermarket headlights even though we had to remove them once a year for inspection. When I first saw HED headlights I though I had arrived. Now OEM LEDs are even better.
 
These lines areinteresting:

"Mazda is now the only automaker with a full line of Top Safety Pick+ vehicles for the 2017 model year, including the Mazda 3 and Mazda 6 cars, CX-3 subcompact crossover and CX-9 three-row crossover. Because the MX-5 Miata is a low-volume sports car, it is not subject to scrutiny by the nonprofit safety institute.

Interestingly, the 2017 Mazda CX-5 only earned a four-star overall rating from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the government’s safety regulator, which tends to have more lax standards of vehicle safety."
 
dougal said:
These lines areinteresting:

"Mazda is now the only automaker with a full line of Top Safety Pick+ vehicles for the 2017 model year, including the Mazda 3 and Mazda 6 cars, CX-3 subcompact crossover and CX-9 three-row crossover. Because the MX-5 Miata is a low-volume sports car, it is not subject to scrutiny by the nonprofit safety institute.

Interestingly, the 2017 Mazda CX-5 only earned a four-star overall rating from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the government’s safety regulator, which tends to have more lax standards of vehicle safety."
Click to expand...

If you look at the test details with all measurements for both CR-V and CX-5 they are basically the save give or take a few in some categories and the CR-V got 5 stars
 
dougal said:
These lines areinteresting:

"Mazda is now the only automaker with a full line of Top Safety Pick+ vehicles for the 2017 model year, including the Mazda 3 and Mazda 6 cars, CX-3 subcompact crossover and CX-9 three-row crossover. Because the MX-5 Miata is a low-volume sports car, it is not subject to scrutiny by the nonprofit safety institute.

Interestingly, the 2017 Mazda CX-5 only earned a four-star overall rating from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the government’s safety regulator, which tends to have more lax standards of vehicle safety."
Click to expand...

As I said my in my last post, NHTSA awards stars based on performance relative to others in its class that year. Competing vehicles in that class are also doing well in NHTSA's tests. You'll find them as "top picks" at the IIHS also. If you look at the raw data you'll find they all perform pretty similar. I believe 5 stars at NHTSA means it must be above all the others in all the categories. The CX-5's been there before, this year it's the CR-V.
 
craigo said:
NHTSA awards stars based on relative performance to other vehicles in that class. This is a good thing because it encourages makers to continuously improve vs designing "to the test". It can be a little confusing though because it might appear that a new model year performs worse than a previous year when it's because the competition caught up.
Click to expand...
Fair statement. Mazda needs to figure out getting back to 5-star overall rating on NHTSA safety rating like 2015 CX-5!
 
yrwei52 said:
Fair statement. Mazda needs to figure out getting back to 5-star overall rating on NHTSA safety rating like 2015 CX-5!
Click to expand...
Since the NHTSA results are relative to other vehicles in the same class, this is only possible if Honda screws up their upcoming CRV models. Sure Mazda can put forth more effort on the safety of their cars, but this will come at a cost to other aspects of the car. The limiting factor here, and I admit I this is just purely assumption on my part, but the limiting factor here is that Mazda has to come up with a vehicle that will meet their criteria and be profitable. They can design a car to be as safe as possible, but if it results in a car that is a lot more expensive, or not fun to drive, the business won't sign off on it. I think if safety is your number 1 criteria for purchasing a car, you've got to look at Volvo for your next car purchase.

To be fair to Mazda, just because their cars aren't getting all the NHTSA stars doesn't automatically mean their vehicles aren't safe. Did anyone see that article about a CX-5 owner who got T-boned badly by a truck and survived? After getting out of the hospital she went ahead and bought another Mazda CX-5. If I'm not mistaken, that article was in one of Mazda's Zoom-zoom magazines.
 
finch204 said:
Since the NHTSA results are relative to other vehicles in the same class, this is only possible if Honda screws up their upcoming CRV models. Sure Mazda can put forth more effort on the safety of their cars, but this will come at a cost to other aspects of the car. The limiting factor here, and I admit I this is just purely assumption on my part, but the limiting factor here is that Mazda has to come up with a vehicle that will meet their criteria and be profitable. They can design a car to be as safe as possible, but if it results in a car that is a lot more expensive, or not fun to drive, the business won't sign off on it. I think if safety is your number 1 criteria for purchasing a car, you've got to look at Volvo for your next car purchase.

To be fair to Mazda, just because their cars aren't getting all the NHTSA stars doesn't automatically mean their vehicles aren't safe. Did anyone see that article about a CX-5 owner who got T-boned badly by a truck and survived? After getting out of the hospital she went ahead and bought another Mazda CX-5. If I'm not mistaken, that article was in one of Mazda's Zoom-zoom magazines.
Click to expand...

Yes I saw that, but to play devils advocate a bit. A passenger would not have been so lucky if I remember the pics from that.

Or am I thinking of something else?
 
ColoradoDriver said:
Yes I saw that, but to play devils advocate a bit. A passenger would not have been so lucky if I remember the pics from that.

Or am I thinking of something else?
Click to expand...
Correct, it did look pretty bad. We'll never know if a passenger would have survived that hit and this goes for crashes in other CUVs like the CX-5. Had it been a CRV, would a passenger have survived the crash? We don't really know. If I'm not mistaken (and I cannot seem to find the article), the CX-5 involved in a crash was a 2014 or 2015 CX-5, which had all 5 stars for the NHTSA frontal crash test. That car was as safe as it could have been per the test and for that model year.
 
finch204 said:
Correct, it did look pretty bad. We'll never know if a passenger would have survived that hit and this goes for crashes in other CUVs like the CX-5. Had it been a CRV, would a passenger have survived the crash? We don't really know. If I'm not mistaken (and I cannot seem to find the article), the CX-5 involved in a crash was a 2014 or 2015 CX-5, which had all 5 stars for the NHTSA frontal crash test. That car was as safe as it could have been per the test and for that model year.
Click to expand...

Oh fully agree. I feel quite safe in mine. :)

I'd feel perfectly safe in a newer one too.
 
craigo said:
As I said my in my last post, NHTSA awards stars based on performance relative to others in its class that year. Competing vehicles in that class are also doing well in NHTSA's tests. You'll find them as "top picks" at the IIHS also. If you look at the raw data you'll find they all perform pretty similar. I believe 5 stars at NHTSA means it must be above all the others in all the categories. The CX-5's been there before, this year it's the CR-V.
Click to expand...
While it's debatable a 5-star rated 2015 CX-5 is safer than a 4-star rated 2016 and 2017 CX-5's under NHTSA safety ratings, now you make it sounded like the NHTSA safety rating on 2017 Mazda CX-5 is only behind 2017 Honda CR-V?!

Here is a list of all 2017 compact CUVs in the US getting top 5-star NHTSA overall safety rating:

Toyota RAV4
Honda CR-V
Ford Escape
Subaru Forester
Subaru Outback
Hyundai Tucson
Kia Sportage

And here is the list of all 2017 compact CUVs in the US getting 4-star NHTSA overall safety rating:

Nissan Rogue
Chevrolet Equinox
Jeep Cherokee
Mazda CX-5

There's no 2017 compact CUVs in the US getting 3-star or less NHTSA overall safety rating.

Which group do we CX-5 owners want to be?

I'm still amazed in 2015 MY era we all applauded how safe our CX-5 was by getting 5 stars on NHTSA safety rating, now we say don't mind them? (uhm)
 
You brought up another car that I had a question before but forgot to ask. How is the 2017 Toyota Rav4 getting a 5-star overall safety rating, when it doesn't even get a perfect score on the frontal crash tests? It gets 4 stars only everywhere for the frontal crash test, while the 2017 CX-5 gets all 5 stars and yet, the Rav4 still gets a 5-star overall rating and the CX-5 does not. The same thing happened with the 2017 Ford Escape that doesn't have a full 5 star frontal crash test results but still gets 5 star overall rating. Same thing with the Subaru Forester. In my opinion, the only CUV deserving of a full 5-star overall rating is the CR-V, which gets 5 stars on all tests.

https://www.nhtsa.gov/vehicle/2017/TOYOTA/RAV4/SUV/FWD#safety-ratings-frontal
https://www.nhtsa.gov/vehicle/2017/FORD/ESCAPE/SUV/FWD#safety-ratings-frontal
https://www.nhtsa.gov/vehicle/2017/SUBARU/FORESTER/SUV/AWD
 
finch204 said:
You brought up another car that I had a question before but forgot to ask. How is the 2017 Toyota Rav4 getting a 5-star overall safety rating, when it doesn't even get a perfect score on the frontal crash tests? It gets 4 stars only everywhere for the frontal crash test, while the 2017 CX-5 gets all 5 stars and yet, the Rav4 still gets a 5-star overall rating and the CX-5 does not. The same thing happened with the 2017 Ford Escape that doesn't have a full 5 star frontal crash test results but still gets 5 star overall rating. Same thing with the Subaru Forester. In my opinion, the only CUV deserving of a full 5-star overall rating is the CR-V, which gets 5 stars on all tests.

https://www.nhtsa.gov/vehicle/2017/TOYOTA/RAV4/SUV/FWD#safety-ratings-frontal
https://www.nhtsa.gov/vehicle/2017/FORD/ESCAPE/SUV/FWD#safety-ratings-frontal
https://www.nhtsa.gov/vehicle/2017/SUBARU/FORESTER/SUV/AWD
Click to expand...
Don't be sounded like NHTSA has preferential treatment toward others. I'm not an expert from NHTSA and my observation is 2017 Mazda CX-5 apparently scored low 5 stars on all frontal crash categories and low 4 stars at "Side Crash Passenger Side" and "Combined Rear Seat Rating" during the side crash while others such as Toyota RAV4 scored high 4 stars on all frontal crash categories and all high 5 stars on all side crash categories. The results are 4 stars overall on CX-5 but 5 stars overall on RAV4.

Just remember the slogan from NHTSA:

More stars mean safer cars.
 
dougal said:
These lines areinteresting:

"Mazda is now the only automaker with a full line of Top Safety Pick+ vehicles for the 2017 model year, including the Mazda 3 and Mazda 6 cars, CX-3 subcompact crossover and CX-9 three-row crossover. Because the MX-5 Miata is a low-volume sports car, it is not subject to scrutiny by the nonprofit safety institute.

Interestingly, the 2017 Mazda CX-5 only earned a four-star overall rating from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the governments safety regulator, which tends to have more lax standards of vehicle safety."
Click to expand...

Impressive!
 
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