Kia Carnival Underachieves in Australian Crash Tests

A shocked Kia is going back to the drawing board after its best-selling Carnival people mover fails to achieve a 5-star rating in Australian crash tests.

The Australasian New Car Assessment Program (ANCAP) says the “disappointing” 4-star safety rating for the all-new model is a result of less-than-optimal performance in the frontal-offset crash test and the omission of a required safety-assist technology.

ANCAP says the frontal-offset test, which simulates a head-on crash, revealed there is heightened risk of serious injury to the legs and feet of the driver. There was excessive movement of the park and foot-brake pedals and significant footwell deformation. Dash components were a potential source of injury to the knees.

The all-new Carnival scored only 10.48 out of 16 in the offset-frontal-crash test where the vehicle hits a barrier at 40 mph (64 km/h). Its predecessor, released in 2006, scored 9.81 out of 16.

Under ANCAP rules, vehicles must score at least 12.5 out of 16 in this crash test to be eligible for further tests in which it could earn a 5-star safety rating.

Kia Australia says in a statement it is extremely surprised by the performance of the model that has been Australia’s biggest-selling people mover in 10 of the past 11 years.

The latest model went on sale in February priced from A$39,490 ($30,194).

Chief Operating Officer Damien Meredith says the ANCAP result comes as a shock, but the company will abide by the decision.

“It was definitely unexpected, as all indications from internal data and the car’s excellent performance in the North American Highway Safety Institute’s testing, led us to believe there would be a 5-star outcome,” Meredith says in a statement.

He says the test data will be sent to the parent company’s R&D team for analysis and to formulate an engineering fix and “once that process has been completed, Kia Australia will be in a better position to comment further.”