Type 44/5000 safety rating

[Ti Kan]

Ben Swann writes:
> ...
> Joe Buyer here.  I've run into a bit of a snag with my wife regarding the
> purchase of your avant.  She's a firm believer in safety ratings and when
> she looked up the stuff on the 87 5000's was not amused at their 1 star
> drivers side rating in the 83-88 range.  Unless I can find something in
> print somewhere to convince here otherwise I'm afraid I'm going to have to
> pass on the car.

Crash tests are a very, very complex subject, involving the specific
test circumstance and and many measurements.  When something like this
is "dumbed down" to a single X stars rating, many things are going to
become lost in the translation.

I haven't read the original test that lead to that specific "score",
but the Type 44 Audi, even sans procon-ten and airbags were in general
very safe cars for its time.  Perhaps one item or two scored poorly, and
it is questionable whether those particulars are even consistently
reproduceable.

It is even possible for a car manufacturer to build a car solely
to score well in particular tests while the car might fare poorly in
certain real world situations.

To conclude about the overall safety of a car based only on that X stars
rating is being rather naive.  To base purchase decisions on that factor
is just plain stupid.

-Ti
2003 A4 1.8T multitronic (soon)
2001 S4 2.7T
1984 5000S turbo
1980 4000 2.0
--
    ///  Ti Kan                Vorsprung durch Technik
   ///   AMB Laboratories, Sunnyvale, CA. USA
  ///    ti at amb.org
 //////  http://www.amb.org/ti/
///