1997 Volkswagen Passat

midsize car / 4-door sedan

1997 Volkswagen Passat 4-door sedan
1995 Volkswagen Passat shown

Crashworthiness

Rating overview
Moderate overlap front: original test

Other available safety features

  • Standard daytime running lights

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 1995-97 models

Tested vehicle: 1995 Volkswagen Passat GLX 4-door

The Volkswagen Passat was restyled and re-engineered for 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. The right side of the seat moved forward along its track about an inch, and the seat pitched forward and to the left. The dummy's head hit the roof rail and door frame, finishing outside the occupant compartment in the gap left between the two structures.

Action shot taken during the frontal offset crash test.

Despite outward appearances, the occupant compartment was seriously compromised when the floor buckled in the offset test.

Dummy movement during the crash wasn't well controlled -- the dummy's head finished between the roof rail and door frame.

Technical measurements for this test

Measures of occupant compartment intrusion on driver side

Test ID CF95016
Footwell intrusion
Footrest (cm) 25
Left (cm) 36
Center (cm) 25
Right (cm) 20
Brake pedal (cm) 23
Instrument panel rearward movement
Left (cm) 8
Right (cm) 6
Steering column movement
Upward (cm) 10
Rearward (cm) 9
A-pillar rearward movement (cm) 7

Driver injury measures

Test ID CF95016
Head
HIC-15 150
Peak gs at hard contact 53
Neck
Tension (kN) 1.4
Extension bending moment (Nm) 30
Maximum Nij 0.38
Chest maximum compression (mm) 25
Legs
Femur force - left (kN) 6.9
Femur force - right (kN) 2.8
Knee displacement - left (mm) 8
Knee displacement - right (mm) 9
Maximum tibia index - left 1.86
Maximum tibia index - right 0.46
Tibia axial force - left (kN) 1.1
Tibia axial force - right (kN) 0.8
Foot acceleration (g)
Left 120
Right 116

How the moderate overlap front test is conducted

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