If you live in a country that sells a 2017 Fiat Punto, you might want to look elsewhere if you’re in the market for buying a small car for your starter family.
Just because you’re a supermini car doesn’t that you’ll get less scrutiny when it comes to independent safety testing. According to the latest round of testing published by the European Car safety programme earlier this week (Dec. 14, 2017) it looks like Fiat engineers will have to go back to the drawing boards when it comes to their Fiat Grande Punto as it scored a whopping zero stars making it the first car in the Euro NCAP’s history to do so. Check out the sorry display of safety below.
Euro NCAP probably wouldn’t have tested this family supermini if it wouldn’t have been for Fiat’s latest refresh to the supermini. The rationale being, many car makers are trying to stretch the life out of some of their longer running models. By slapping on a new minorly updated face and throwing on a couple of options, potential buyers are presented with what they think is a totally revamped car when in reality, nothing major was done to it.
Faced with a competitive market-place and rapidly-changing consumer preferences, more and more manufacturers are choosing to extend the lifetimes of their models, often introducing only minor facelifts along the way to boost sales. To allow consumer to make a fair comparison to new models, Euro NCAP has updated the ratings on several of recently facelifted cars.
The Euro NCAP tests cars on four main areas including adult occupant, child occupant, pedestrian safety, and safety assist. I’ve posted a quick percentage score out of 100 below.
- Adult occupant- 51 percent
- Child occupant- 43 percent
- Pedestrian safety- 52 percent
- Safety assist- 0 percent
A closer inspection of the video shows that the Fiat did the bare minimum in protecting adult and child occupants from blows from the front and side. Although the engine took most of the brunt of the impact, there was a significant intrusion into the driver and passenger footwell.
As is the standard in this day and age of cars, some kind of safety assist is expected even the smallest cars (e.g. lane watch, early braking detection etc.) Nothing from the Fiat Punto accounts for its zero percent there.
For discerning car shoppers, most likely many will steer clear of this Fiat Punto when cross-shopping. I’m sure Fiat will urge a retest as soon as possible once they add some important strengthening members in key places.
