Safety sacrificed in imported cars

Motoring journalist and safety advocate Clive Matthew-Wilson said importers of European cars had “completely lost the plot in the past decade”.

“They are more concerned with style over substance,” the New Zealand-based author of The Dog & Lemon Guide said.

“Stripping out safety features to keep costs down helps the manufacturers sell more cars as it makes them cheaper, but the end result is that ordinary people die,” he said.

“What also worries me is Australians are reading international crash test reports where the safety features were included.”

Matthew-Wilson, who successfully lobbied the New Zealand Government to make unsafe old seatbelts unlawful, said he was “probably not on car companies' Christmas card list”.

He said stripping out curtain airbags was of particular concern as they were known to save lives in crashes with poles and trees.

“An airbag at the factory probably costs about $25. If they can get away with it they do.”

He said cars imported into Australia had fewer standard safety features than those imported into New Zealand.

“The Barina (imported from Korea) has ABS standard in New Zealand, but in Australia it does not come with ABS, but costs about the same price,” he said. “In New Zealand, importers are competing with second-hand Japanese imports with all the safety features. In Australia they do not have the same competition.

“It's a cozy arrangement between the car companies to leave safety devices off to cut costs.”

GM Holden national media relations manager John Lindsay said the markets and pricing structure were different between Australian and New Zealand markets.

“The Barina in NZ starts at a higher specification which we believe is required to compete in that specific market and this is reflected in a higher entry-level price,” he said.

Matthew-Wilson said electronic stability control was a crucial safety device available in most new European cars.

However, in Australia, only the top models had ESC fitted.

“Airbags and electronic stability control are considered luxury features and are usually only included in a package with mag wheels.”

Matthew-Wilson said top-of-the-range imported cars had a substantial array of safety features, but we were being overcharged for them.

He said Asian cars often featured more safety features and were near the top of consumer satisfaction surveys on reliability while European cars were near the bottom.

The latest British customer satisfaction survey has awarded Lexus, the luxury arm of Toyota, the top rank for the seventh consecutive year.

“English cars are the worst of the worst, but most of them are not truly English any more, they are German,” he said.

Matthew-Wilson is also concerned about the poor standard of seatbelts in second-hand Australian cars.

He wants the Australian Government to legislate for the replacement of unsafe seatbelts.

“This is of real concern because some older style seatbelts stretch like rubber bands in an accident. They are as bad as no seatbelt at all,” he said.

Differing safety features

(Australia and New Zealand markets)

All Honda Odyssey (imported from Japan) versions have dual front and side airbags but in New Zealand head curtain airbags are also standard and in Australia they are only fitted to the luxury model.

Current Honda Civic models (imported from Thailand) have six airbags on all models in New Zealand, but in Australia they have a cheap version (VTi) with two, a moderate version with four (VTi-L) and others with six.

Mitsubishi L200 Triton (imported from Thailand) has ABS standard on all models in NZ, but in Australia it is an option on most models and standard on expensive models.

Hyundai Tucson (imported from Korea) has dual front, side and head curtain airbags on all models in NZ. In Australia they have dual front airbags standard, but dual side and head curtain airbags available on Elite and City models. Electronic stability control is standard on all NZ models, but it is not available in Australia.

Holden Viva (imported from Korea) in New Zealand has ABS standard and in Australian it's standard on the wagon and an optional extra with alloy wheels on others.

(Source: The Dog & Lemon Guide)

Clive Matthew-Wilson on these statistics "They are not however 100 per cent accurate simply because many car manufacturers and dealers make it very difficult to find out what safety features are on their cars, even if you go to official websites or call the actual dealers, you are quite often put through to someone who simply doesn't know much about the product they are selling. Also it's worth noting that the week after we ask (a manufacturer) about safety features...they may have a new load in with a different configuration."