1996 Saturn SL

small car / 4-door sedan

Crashworthiness

Rating overview
Moderate overlap front: original test

Key

  • G
    Good
  • A
    Acceptable
  • M
    Marginal
  • P
    Poor
  • Superior
  • Advanced
  • Basic

Some ratings use a scale of Poor to Good. Others range from Basic to Superior.

Moderate overlap front: original test

Rating applies to 1995-2002 models

Tested vehicle: 1997 Saturn SL2 4-door

The Saturn SL was introduced in the 1991 model year. Frontal airbags for both the driver and passenger became standard beginning with the 1995 model year.

Overall evaluation
Structure and safety cage
Driver injury measures
Head/neck
Chest
Leg/foot, left
Leg/foot, right
Driver restraints and dummy kinematics
Dummy movement wasn't well controlled. During rebound, the dummy moved toward the driver door, and its head hit the window frame and B-pillar. There was too much rearward movement of the steering wheel.

Action shot taken during the frontal offset crash test.

There was too much rearward movement of the steering wheel and instrument panel. Otherwise, the driver's survival space was maintained reasonably well.

Dummy movement wasn't well controlled during the offset test. During rebound, the dummy's head moved toward the driver door and then hit the B-pillar.

No damage at all occurred in a 5 mph rear-into-pole impact.

Technical measurements for this test

Measures of occupant compartment intrusion on driver side

Test ID CF97015
Footwell intrusion
Footrest (cm) 12
Left (cm) 21
Center (cm) 19
Right (cm) 14
Brake pedal (cm) 12
Instrument panel rearward movement
Left (cm) 13
Right (cm) 9
Steering column movement
Upward (cm) 5
Rearward (cm) 11
A-pillar rearward movement (cm) 16

Driver injury measures

Test ID CF97015
Head
HIC-15 229
Peak gs at hard contact 27
Neck
Tension (kN) 1.5
Extension bending moment (Nm) 13
Maximum Nij 0.25
Chest maximum compression (mm) 50
Legs
Femur force - left (kN) 7.1
Femur force - right (kN) 3.2
Knee displacement - left (mm) 1
Knee displacement - right (mm) 0
Maximum tibia index - left 0.40
Maximum tibia index - right 0.73
Tibia axial force - left (kN) 1.5
Tibia axial force - right (kN) 3.0
Foot acceleration (g)
Left 52
Right 73

About the original moderate overlap front test