2015 Audi A3 Earns IIHS' Top Safety Pick Plus Award
The redesigned 2015 Audi A3 has earned the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety’s most prestigious safety rating, Top Safety Pick Plus, the institute announced Tuesday. The compact luxury sedan (previously a hatchback) received scores of “good” for performance in the IIHS’ five crashworthiness tests — including small overlap protection, moderate overlap front, side, roof strength and head-restraint — as well as an “advanced” rating for front crash protection.
The A3 is available with an optional front crash prevention system that qualified it for the IIHS’ advanced rating in the new-for-2014 test. The system has automatic braking technology, which helped the car avoid a crash in a test at 12 mph. Meanwhile, in the 2-year-old small overlap test, in which 25 percent of a vehicle’s front end on the driver’s side strikes a rigid barrier at 40 mph to replicate a collision with a tree or utility pole, IIHS reported that the sedan also performed strongly.
“The structure held up well, with a minimal amount of intrusion into the driver’s space,” IIHS said in a statement. “The dummy’s movement was well-controlled, and injury measures taken from the dummy indicated a low risk of injury.”
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