There are plenty of ways to find yourself a cut-price car, skimping on safety is not something we’d recommend however. We’ll let the video below, from Latin NCAP, do all the talking on this occasion…
Over in Latin America, the latest results released by the Latin NCAP people reveal that the Renault Sandero sold there is 20 years behind the global standard for new car safety. Yikes! This is of course relevant to us in South Africa because we manufacture Sanderos right here in Rosslyn, Pretoria and they are quite popular as an entry-level car.
The recently concluded Phase III testing at Latin NCAP revealed that the Renault Sandero gained only a single star, with the affordable hatchback achieving a poor rating due to its “unstable body shell performance” and lack of airbags. Latin NCAP went onto report that this is an even more disappointing result from Renault, when considering the company is clearly capable of doing much better, as shown by the otherwise exemplary Renault safety rating for the Fluence, Clio and Megane.
Other vehicles tested in Phase III that achieved a four-star rating, were the Ford Fiesta, Honda City (Jazz to us in SA), Renault Fluence, Toyota Etios hatchback and the VW Polo. Thankfully all the Sanderos sold in South Africa come with driver and passenger airbags as standard. Phew! That doesn’t, however, fully compensate for the “unstable body shell performance”.
