Europe's leading safety testing organisation has identified a “critical safety failure” with the driver’s seat of the MG 3, prompting an urgent update for the supermini.
In Euro NCAP's frontal offset crash test (in which 40% of the car’s front end collides with a barrier), it found the 3’s seat latching mechanism failed, causing the driver’s seat to twist during the impact.
This caused a more severe impact on the crash test dummy’s right leg than if the seat had remained in place, resulting in a "poor" score for protection of the driver's right femur.
Euro NCAP said it had never witnessed a failure of this kind in its 28 years of crash testing.
The organisation added that MG implemented changes to reinforce the latching mechanism in August.
Euro NCAP also found that the driver’s head could "bottom out" through the airbag in a crash, meaning it graded the 3’s head protection as only adequate.
MG has promised to tweak the airbag in October, Euro NCAP said. However, the seat and airbag changes won't be applied to 3s that have already been delivered to customers since the model's launch last year.
Euro NCAP said it has reported the faults to type-approval authorities so that they can decide whether to issue a recall.
Autocar has contacted MG Motor UK for comment.
Following the findings, Euro NCAP said it will implement changes to how it scores crash tests; it doesn't currently have a mechanism for penalising cars in the event of component failures, so the 3 still scored four stars out of five.
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it's like OffCom - toothless. In such an event, the car shoud not be allowed to remain on sale until a fix has been imlemented and retested. I'm sure the free-marketeers would say 'it's up to the consumer to make that decision'.
MG's response is a disgraceful denial of responsibility for the safety of their customers. I still have a suspicion that many Chinese manufacturers having grown so quickly that they don't have the depth of engineering expertise - as opposed to software brilliance - of the Western car manufacturers. I also believe that culturally they are not inclined to acknowledge or want to correct mistakes however they unfortunately occurred. Any reputable organisation recognises that you sometimes have to bite the bullet and do the right thing otherwise your name will forever be tainted. It may be that it could take a while for MG to come up with the right solution and it may be expensive - although there cannot be a huge number of vehicles affected. At the very least they should halt sales until modifications can be made to all newly produced cars. I don't really understand why in these circumstances that the DVLA cannot step in not just to insist on a recall but to withdraw type approval or whatever requirements are necessary to enable them to register UK cars. With so many new Chinese manufacturers seeking to enter the UK market - and these will be the second tier producers - I think the Govt through its agency should be sending a strong social that safety cannot be compromised for value pricing.
The spirit of the Metro/Rover 100 lives on ...