A final nail into the impreza co,er,chassis? Shoot the engineer who designed the doors while you are at it.

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Body Roll - 27 Mar 2009 10:27 GMT

I'm pouring over some EuroNCAP test results and while no car in the
lightpole side crash
test I see have managed to rise above the grade "fair" (that's citroen
c3 picasso pigly)
basic impreza managed to score "unacceptable" in the chest protection.
Head protection for
some reason is "high" and abdomen protection is "sufficient".
In the test the 10" pole on a platform is side impacted at 29km/h
(about 17 mph)
on a stationary car. I wonder how useful is that test and what real
world scenario it's meant to model, but for
comparison in the same test for Lancer
head protection is high, chest "weak", abdomen "fair".
Interestingly enough the pole sideimpact results for Mazda 6 match
those of Impreza.

Is the cause a B pillar designed by a material science "F" student
or just the regular corporate bean counting speading like cancer
from big 3 into the big 4 right over the pond?
I see that B pillar on lancer is a bit longer than on impreza
contributing to a larget overall
blind spot, but, still, chassis stiffness rules above that, no?
Me thinks in case of a rollover lancer would ride on its roof better
than impreza.
What do you think?

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suburboturbo - 27 Mar 2009 14:34 GMT

> I'm pouring over some EuroNCAP test results and while no car in the
> lightpole side crash
[quoted text clipped - 21 lines]
> than impreza.
> What do you think?

The B pillar on the Impreza, at least on my 2004. is a steel rod
nearly 3/4" thick that looks like a piece of rebar embedded in a
channel in the sheetmetal. It's a very substantial piece, though I
don't know whether the protection it affords is primarily for side
impacts or rollover support. I came across an article in Firehouse
magazine, a trade journal for firefighters, cautioning that the blade
used in a standard hydraulic cutting toll won't easily sever this rod
and a heavier blade must be substituted for Impreza's from 2002-2005.

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Body Roll - 02 Apr 2009 11:16 GMT

suburboturbo:

> The B pillar on the Impreza, at least on my 2004. is a steel rod
> nearly 3/4" thick that looks like a piece of rebar embedded in a
[quoted text clipped - 4 lines]
> used in a standard hydraulic cutting toll won't easily sever this rod
> and a heavier blade must be substituted for Impreza's from 2002-2005.

The crash comparison was for new model (which has a different
chassis).
Still you have a perfect illustration that it's not the size that
matters
but how you use it :-)
The culprit might be the roof then or the floor chassis members.
Only the FHI chassis designers would know which part sucks,
or if it's the parts working together that suck,
and, if the suckiness is specific to the entry level impreza only.

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