IIHS: Nissan, Chrysler minivans perform ‘abysmally’ in crash tests [Video]

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety has issued a blunt warning of serious safety deficiencies with several minivans.
Buyers might assume the latest family haulers place safety as a top priority, however just one out of four models performed acceptably in a recent round of small-overlap crash tests.

The Nissan Quest, the Chrysler Town & Country and its stablemate, the Dodge Grand Caravan, each earned poor ratings. The 2015 Toyota Sienna earned the only acceptable rating in the latest trials, joining the Honda Odyssey among the Top Safety Pick Plus winners.

The Quest was particularly terrible, described as “one of the worst-performing vehicles we’ve ever seen” in the small-overlap crash test.

“The structure collapsed like a house of cards,” said IIHS executive VP and chief research officer, David Zuby. “We had to cut the seat out in order to remove the dummy, and then we needed a crowbar to pry the right foot loose. Not surprisingly the forces measured on the left leg were so high that a real person experiencing that would be lucky to ever walk normally again.”

Zuby suggests the small-overlap test is especially tough on minivans, which are typically built upon car platforms that have been widened to maximize interior space. More of the vehicle is consequently located farther away from the main structure.

The current Nissan Quest generation was introduced for the 2011 model year, before the IIHS implemented the more stringent small-overlap test. The current Chrysler platform is even older, dating back to 2008, and had earned a five-star rating in most of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration tests, which do not include the small-overlap impact.

Toyota modified the Sienna for the 2015 model year, apparently optimizing structural components to handle the small-overlap test. Nonetheless, the IIHS noted that it “didn’t hold up that well” in the latest trial, earning an ‘acceptable’ rating overall and ‘marginal’ in the structure-integrity category.

The IIHS still needs to test the Kia Sedona, which is currently being revised specifically to improve small-overlap protection. The organization is waiting until the crash-optimized edition arrives before performing the tests.