Safety and the EA82

[Lukas]

Hallo and good morning:) !

 

My father works as an Emergency surgeon and so I have seen many accidents myself.

I know its very important to have a stiff car strucutre in case of an accident with a safety cage protecting you.

 

Now I want to know how stiff the EA82 is, because I dont want to risk my life more then necessary when driving a car. Is the driver's survival space maintained well in the EA82?

 

I know the EA82 has no airbags (a big improvement in safety) or side impact protection systems like Volvo, but is the EA82 stiff enough to stand a frontal offset crash at for example 35 mph?

 

The head restraints used in the EA82 are also just a joke. They are very little and so they protect your head very bad in case of a rear impact.

 

I have seen accidents with killed people and I am sometimes thinking of selling my beloved EA82 and buying a car with good crash ratings.

 

What do you guys and girls think?

 

Lukas

[Ross]

While you could definitely do better than a 80s subaru for safety, you could most definitely do worse...

The ea82 subaru is a very safe car compared to many others of its age.

Personaly, i don't think they are anything like unsafe enough to make me think twice about driving one.

[subie94]

i had a accident with my 86 gl wagon awhile bk.a volvo was the other car an guess which car was still running.?

 

my gl was,of course it wasn't a head on but she pull out in front of me while i was going like 40mph.she cut across from my left side an i took off her front end bumper,radiator,etc. my car did hold up for the most part. the rad got pushed into the engine a'lil.guess cause i caught her with the front drivers side corner.

 

maybe that's why my gl didn't get completely totaled but bad enough.

 

oh yah don't sell,just wear your seat belt.i wasn't in my accident an i turned out ok.one think that i find funny now is that when i came to a stop,parts of her volvo was landing on my car an i stopped like 20 feet away from her.

[85Sub4WD]

Two Saturns and a Honda have died on our car (their driver's fault) - without any serious injury to the passenger or any passenger compartment intrusion whatsoever.

 

The owner of one of the Saturns was injured, and had severe passenger compartment intrusion. (broke out all the windows in her car too) and she was hit on the B-pillar too. - My mom was driving (and the only one in the car at the time) she was uninjured, but the force of impact was enough for her glasses to fly off her face and get lodged in the dash - she was wearing her seatbelt, and was fine, save some muscle pain from tightening up just before impact - but no car can protect you from that.

 

I consiter my Subaru to be a very safe car, they are/were required to pass all US safety tests when they were manufactured, and they are/were pretty stringent. I do not feel endangered in any way when I drive my car - all I need to do is drive with common sense, and my car will protect me from what I cannot.

[mtsmiths]

http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/showthread.php?t=34676Nuff said?

[555Ron]

In Australia, the NRMA (an insurer) did a study of all the accidents involving the cars made over the last 20 years... using actual crash data... not dummies... people.

 

There were three cars they mentioned as being the worst. The Brumby (brat) was the second worst of all the cars they studied. It's an old design and a very, very light design which is the pure reason it rated so poorly. So, these cars are definately bad to be involved in an accident... but the older the car, the worse the crashworthiness.

 

A common mistake about crashworthiness is judging it by the look of the car. If a 1970's Subaru and a 2005 Legacy had a head on... the Legacy would be all crumpled at the front, while the 70's car... well you could drive it away almost. But the new Subaru's are designed to absorb the energy of the impact, older Subies the occupants took this role. You will see that in these tests the windscreen doesn't crack in accidents involving newer Subarus because of the excellent crashworthiness of these vehicles.

 

If you want a safe car, look at getting a newer Subaru. They are the safest cars on sale now imo. Unfortunately, its a risk with the older Subes, but so is driving. You just have to weigh it up and decide what your needs are...

[85Sub4WD]

Brats are EA81 cars, Leones are EA82

 

completely different body, structual design, etc

 

I have never called an EA81 car a safe car; I think the CARS are safer than most of that era - look at the Datsun 210, Hondas, and Toyotas of the day

 

actual passenger compartment intrusion is the biggest factor as far as physical injuries - while a car that is designed to crumple up may reduce your injuries in a minor accident, it has greater potiential to cause passenger compartment intrusion in a more serious accident - I have seen many wrecked soobs (and for that matter other cars) of different ages around here in JY's, I have not seen any with serious passenger compartment (I saw one which had moved the side in about 2cm)

 

The 70's soobs were really light - they were not safe cars in any way, the EA81 was a massive improvement, but the EA82 body was the big step forward - newer Legacys outscore Volvos in all US government and private crash tests - so if you do want a newer car, you are still safest to stay with a soob

[MilesFox]

i tell you what i feel a lot safer riding in an ea82 subaru than say some grand am or cavalier, i wont be sucked under the dash in a subaru!

 

let me remind you that if your car has an automatic seat belt, PLEASE wear the lap belt also. sure its convenient to keep you from getting tickets, but it does NOTHING without the lap belt buckled. i dont see a point in wearing only the shoulder part alone, if that were the case i would wear none of it, but i always buckle the lap portion

 

the reason i stress this is someone i know passed away last week when she was ejected from her legacy, the car rolled over on her. if she had the lap belt on it wouldnt have been such a sad story

[karinvail]

PLEASE wear the lap belt

 

the reason i stress this is someone i know passed away last week when she was ejected from her legacy, the car rolled over on her. if she had the lap belt on it wouldnt have been such a sad story

 

I so agree with you there. My mother is a widow and my brothers and I are fatherless because my dad did not wear a seatbelt. We had an accident headed to our summer cabin for vacation - the truck rolled over him too. Left her to raise an 11 year old son, a 9 year old daughter(me), and 1 year old twin boys......

[Lukas]

In Australia, the NRMA (an insurer) did a study of all the accidents involving the cars made over the last 20 years... using actual crash data... not dummies... people.

 

There were three cars they mentioned as being the worst. The Brumby (brat) was the second worst of all the cars they studied. It's an old design and a very, very light design which is the pure reason it rated so poorly. So, these cars are definately bad to be involved in an accident... but the older the car, the worse the crashworthiness.

 

I am very interested in these tests. Do you have a link or more informations?

 

Here in europe we dont have these bad automatic seat belts. We have 3 point belts (thats what they are called here: 3 Punkt Gurte).

 

Lukas

[NorthWet]

Amen, Miles.

[erik litchy]

double post

[erik litchy]

you always have the option of installing a rollcage to help make the car safer. I plan on installing one in my jeep, as I have seen that the roof collapses in a rollover.

[Meeky Moose]

heh, get back into the 70's and stick any car made on the planet against a chrysler newport in a crash test and see which one is safer, lol.. theres a reason people use those in demolition derby's..

 

take that same newport and ram it into the side of any one of these new cars made and see who gets hurt, regardless of age, airbags, sideimpact door beams, whatever.. that newport would lay the smack down on any new car out there..

 

anyways, one of the safest 80's cars i have ever had was an 85' toyota celica.. a lady in a 85' pontiac bonneville pulled out in front of me, i nailed her at about 30 mph right in the passenger side front wheel area.. that pontiac was totalled, pushed the wheel all the way up against the valve cover of the motor.. only thing it did to my celica was push the bumper in 1/4" and broke my blinker lens.. now thats what i call crash worthiness..

 

no matter what car you get you are always gonna be in danger when driving.. you can be in a new subaru, volvo, etc, and get t-boned by an excursion doing 40 mph and you might as well kiss your butt goodbye..

[Lukas]

I know, a roll cage will make my Touring Wagon a lot safer, but I dont want to drive a rally car inside...

 

I know that seat belts are very important, but I dont know if the body structure of the EA82 is stiff enough to stand a frontal impact with 50km/h.

 

The http://www.euroncap.com/ tests the cars with 64km/h and the new cars are so safe that you have a big chance to walk away after a frontal impact with 64km/h.

 

Look at the ratings.

 

Lukas

[Sweet82]

On the 1982 US hatchback (EA-81) the bumpers fall into the 2 1/2 mile/hour catagory.

 

If anything hits those bumpers they will fold. The vehicle was classed as a 4X4 and thereby was held to a lower crash standard than "cars" in the US.

 

I'd think the crash test data is still on file for the 80's Subarus somewhere on the net...

 

http://www.crashtest.com/subaru/ie.htm

 

Found some...

[Lukas]

Frontal Impacts only (Differs from Side Impacts)

5 stars (*****) = 10% or less chance of serious injury.

4 stars (****) = 11% to 20% chance of serious injury.

3 stars (***) = 21% to 35% chance of serious injury.

2 stars (**) = 36% to 45% chance of serious injury.

1 star (*) = 46% or greater chance of serious injury.

 

The Results below are listed in the following left to right order: (F=Frontal impact; S=Side impact)

(All impacts are measured in the front seats except passenger side impacts which are measured in the rear seat.)

Year--- |Make and Model |Doors| Weight | Driver (F) Pass | Driver (S) Pass |

 

1985--- Subaru DL------------ 4Dr-- 2698 (* ) (**** )

1986--- Subaru GL------------ 4Dr-- 2712 (* ) (**** )

1987--- Subaru GL------------ 4Dr-- 2740 (* ) (**** )

 

If I understand this the right way, you have a big chance of serious injury. So these results say, that the EA82 is an unsafe vehicle, dont they?

 

Not good.

 

Lukas

[operose]

a little off topic here, as it wasn't an ea82, but while driving my '88 XT6 I got hit in the driver's side front fender by a brand new honda civic that blew a stop sign onto a major highway at 35mph or so... I was going 45mph. the front of the honda was completely ripped off. engine, fenders, radiator, hood, bumper were laying in pieces on the road. my car the front control arm got bent, the body got tweaked, and the fender got smashed.

 

 

old subarus less safe? *shrug* not to me.

 

 

oh by the way I was wearing automatic shoulder belt + lap belt

[555Ron]

http://www.mynrma.com.au/used_safety_ratings_med.asp

http://www.mynrma.com.au/used_safety_ratings_com.asp

[torxxx]

I've seen 50 or 60 wrecked EA82 wagons and sedans since I've been livin in Fairbanks. I could climb into and sit in Any of the seats of a front and rear collision cars. The maintained the passenger/drivers space.

 

Side impact is another story. There is 4 inches of braced sheet metal between you and the car hitting you. In a side impact, I wouldnt want to be wearing a seatbelt because I'd rather be thrown across the car then be held in a crumple zone.

 

We have 4 subarus in the yard that are rolled. 3 EA82s and one Legacy. All of them, the roofs held up pretty damn good. maybe crumpled down 2 inches or so. None of them had the entire roof smashed. They smash to the B pillar to the front of the hood at a 45 degree angle. The windshields stayed in the car, cracked up pretty good, but solid enough you could still stand on the windshield.

 

I saw a EA81 wagon at an auction last weekend that hit a moose. I'm guessin at about 40 or 45. Smashed the roof back, but It still had enough room to get in and sit down without having anything hit you. the windshield was popped out, but I'm guessing it was Butyl Tape from the factory window

 

Anyways, just my expirences (my spelling sucks.. deal with it.. lol)

[Subaru_dude]

I think the EA82 is safe enough. I don't fear for my life everytime I get in it, but I do feel safer in it than in my sisters Honda. Her car sits so low that it seems like I'm starring straight at every suv's oil pan. It's a *************** to drive at night, lol. My dad's.. i think his 4th Subaru, a 1984 2 door hatch 2 wheel drive 4 speed... ended up skipping off the side of a semi and hitting a tree and flipping end over end twice. Johnny (the driver) was fine, pissed as hell though.. the car had 280,000 miles on it and ran like a top. But he could have been pretty seriously injured by the toolbox of wrenches he had in the back that flew through the front windshield.. but other than that the car held up alright. The reason he skipped off the side of the semi: he fell asleep, no cupholders for coffee.

[TROGDOR!]

Back in 1990 my mom's '88 GL wagon took a BMW 5 series to the driver's door at 40 mph. The car was demolished, but the door only intruded about an inch. Didn't even break the glass. Her only injuries were from being whipped to the side when the car was hit. Physics were to blame, not the car. She's fine now though, just was a little stiff for a couple weeks, and had a bit of a bump on the head. I wouldn't hesitate to get in and drive a Subaru any time. I've seen over 100 wrecked ones and never have seen a single one that looks like it could have resulted in serious injury (assuming the driver was belted in).

[Quidam]

I know, a roll cage will make my Touring Wagon a lot safer, but I dont want to drive a rally car inside...

 

Hi Lukas, It's late here and I'm shortly going to bed, but a few thoughts. If you lived in my neighborhood I'd suggest you sell that death-trap to me, cheap. That cage could potentially bust your noggin without a helmet.

 

I know that seat belts are very important, but I dont know if the body structure of the EA82 is stiff enough to stand a frontal impact with 50km/h.

 

I don't know either. The engine would be pushed back and under the car. The spare tire would cushion some of the blow. It certainly wouldn't take the hit as well as some other vehicles. My thought is you would be more satisfied, and it would ease your mind, if you bought one of those.

 

The http://www.euroncap.com/ tests the cars with 64km/h and the new cars are so safe that you have a big chance to walk away after a frontal impact with 64km/h.

 

I looked at the Subaru Justy from one of those URL's and it was rated 3 stars. Doesn't make sense to me. Listed an '87. Some of the new stuff will be totaled by the insurance companies if you set off all of those air-bags plus some damage. They're expensive to replace!

 

As for the structure of the EA-82. Put a floor jack under one of the rear tow hooks and jack it up. It may suprise you!

 

Look at the ratings.

 

Lukas

 

Get a Volvo?

 

Doug

[555Ron]

I like these pictures...

 

http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid111/p8817defe14f91804dcf92d74c11c80df/f91305c1.jpg

 

http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid165/pc3db19a49833d3978aa9b42c4fe77105/f464f8a5.jpg

 

I think the second one proves one thing... Its not how the car looks after the accident... its how the occupants are. They both walked away, and won the next race, leading from start to finish!

[torxxx]

ron - links didnt work.. forbidden..