For years, automakers have been striving to meet the requirements necessary to be named an Insurance Institute for Highway Safety “Top Safety Pick,” which has always meant scoring top marks of “Good” in frontal-offset, side-impact, and roof strength crash tests. Mercedes-Benz vehicles have typically done pretty well along these lines, but back in 2012 the IIHS added a couple of new tests—the small and moderate front overlap crash tests—that vehicles industry-wide have had a hard time living up to.
These tests are meant to simulate a single-car accident with a tree or a telephone pole, which is obviously a very important kind of accident for which to plan, and dealers selling Mercedes-Benz in Florida are very happy to announce that the 2014 Mercedes-Benz M-Class vehicles are the first of our brand to earn top marks in the new tests, thereby earning the prestigious “Top Safety Pick+” designation.
This was done by strengthening the front door sills on the M-Class vehicles, a fix that we very much expect to be applied to several other Mercedes-Benz models in the coming several months to ensure that more of our cars and SUVs are also named to the list of Top Safety Pick+ autos.
After all, Mercedes-Benz is a brand that has always prided itself on manufacturing vehicles that consumers can buy knowing full well that they’ll be taken care of in case of an incident, and this most recent crash test coup by the new M-Class is definitely another sign that our vehicles are staying ahead of the curve. By no means will this be the last we hear of Mercedes-Benz getting the better of these new IIHS overlap tests.
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