The Jeep Wagoneer is the only one of the three full-size SUVs sold by U.S. brands to receive a Top Safety Pick rating from IIHS (Insurance Institute for Highway Safety).
The Tahoe and Expedition earned Acceptable and Marginal scores on the Small Overlap Front portion of the evaluation, for which the Wagoneer earned a Good score.
The Expedition’s steering column partially detached, the A-pillar separated from the rocker panel and there was significant intrusion into the driver’s footwell.
The Tahoe and Expedition also scored Poor and Marginal on the headlight test, respectively, while the Tahoe’s pedestrian-detecting automatic emergency braking system was deemed Marginal. IIHS believes the Tahoe’s lighting may have also played a role in its emergency braking performance.
“The huge mass of these large SUVs provides some additional protection in crashes with smaller vehicles, though that also means they present more danger to other road users,” IIHS President David Harkey said in a press release.
“The flip side of their large size is that there is a lot more force to manage when they crash into a fixed obstacle like a tree or bridge abutment or the barrier we use in our front crash tests.”
None of the vehicles were able to get a Good score for rear passenger protection, which is what kept the Wagoneer from earning the Top Safety Pick+ designation. The results were Marginal for the Wagoneer and Expedition and poor for the Tahoe. Projected injuries to rear passengers were largely the result of high seat belt forces.
“These discouraging results show that some popular vehicles still lag behind in meeting the most advanced safety standards,” said Raul Arbelaez, vice president of the Institute’s Vehicle Research Center, said.
“The good news is that the top performer in this class proves that automakers can readily address these problems.”
