- two 2019 jeep wranglers rolled onto their sides during a small overlap front crash test conducted by the insurance institute for highway safety (iihs).
- the vehicles were downgraded to a marginal rating in that test, which is one step above poor.
- however, the 2019 four-door wrangler's test score was good, the top rating, in the other four crash tests, and these results also apply to 2018 and 2020 models.
the iihs (insurance institute for highway safety) just released a video of a four-door 2019 jeep wrangler tipping over onto its side during the nonprofit insurance group's small overlap front driver-side crash test. the video posted on youtube shows that, after smashing into the barrier, the jeep tipped over onto its side and slid along the floor until it hit a safety barrier.
while the passenger safety cage and driver injury measurements were all given the iihs's highest rating of good during the test, the vehicle's inability to stay upright pushed the rating down to marginal. the iihs stated:
"in both the institute's tests, the vehicle tipped onto its passenger side after striking the barrier. the partial rollover presents an additional injury risk beyond what the standard criteria are intended to measure in small overlap frontal crash tests. a vehicle tipping onto its side is not an acceptable outcome for a frontal crash and, as a result, the wrangler's overall rating [on this test] was downgraded to marginal."
in a side collision test, the wrangler did much better, scoring a good rating after it stayed planted to the ground with all four tires. the iihs testers did note that the rear passenger's head protection is insufficient and gave that portion of the test a marginal rating. the full results for the 2018 through 2020 jeep wrangler show it was rated good on four of the five crash tests. the two-door wrangler has not yet undergone this full set of tests.
when contacted by car and driver, fiat chrysler automobiles (fca), jeep's parent, responded: "fca has produced more than 500,000 of these vehicles . . . from this population, we are unaware of any incidents that correlate with the vehicle dynamic portion of the iihs test result.
"no single test determines vehicle safety. fca routinely monitors third-party evaluations and factors such findings into our product-development process.
"real-world data, along with continuing demand, indicate the jeep wrangler unlimited meets or exceeds customer expectations."