More than actual braking distance of a heavily loaded 80 its big tires that get pulled around by rutted s***ty roads that sucks slamming on the brakes.
80 Series Safety
- Thread starter brianweis
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- 1989 fzj80 land cruiser safety
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Like you, I'm concerned about safety. My last SUV (2nd Gen Honda CRV) was totaled in a head-on (hit-and-run) with me in it. That same hit would do zip to my 80. It's a tank. I got hit on the rear corner by a van, barely felt it. Scraped some plastic off the bumper. PO got rear ended at a stop light, took some paint off the stock bumper. The other car was destroyed, towed for junk. (That said, this Cruiser does have a tow hitch, which took a lot of the force.)
Armor up. Cruisin Offroad or ARB or something similar up front, Cruisin Offroad rear (with or without swingouts) and tow hitch, solid frame-mounted sliders on the sides and you're ready for anything short of a fire truck. '95 and up (FZJ80 / LX450) have airbags. Crumple zones? Those come with the guy who hits you; his car is your crumple zone.
Somewhere on the boards are photos of accidents with ARB bumpers, also guys who hit a parked van and a parked crane truck doing around 65-75. One walked away, the other limped.
Here are two photos--one of an 80 with a Cruisin Offroad rear bumper (no tow hitch), the other of the car that hit it. IIRC, 40% of all US accidents are rear-endings.
Among the best reasons to drive an 80:
Physics.
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True as far as it goes, but in most LC crashes, you will be higher and you will be heavier. You may also be armored, which the other vehicle probably isn't.
Parked 80 vs Highlander
"The other car is my crumple zone"
Stealing that....
Stealing that....
Only true within the context of the video you posted along with that comment, and it doesn't apply to the conversation of 80-Series vs average car on the road today.
I suggest everyone take a couple of minutes to watch these two videos (which are very relevant to this discussion):
The IIHS understands that safer designs cannot overcome the laws physics, larger & heavier vehicles will still provide better occupant protection than "safer" smaller & lighter cars
**Oh and for whatever it's worth, the NHTSA gave the 80 Series a 5-Star crash rating (it was never rated by the IIHS)
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The design > weight folks are making a very fundamental logic error that I see repeated more and more often.
Since my background is military, I see it most often in those advocating revisionism in Soviet tank design. On paper, the Soviet T-series of tanks are superior to anything produced by the West. In practice, the Soviet T-series, at best, provides some mildly amusing form of target practice for Western tank crews.
The Toyota Aygo is an incredibly well designed vehicle, and gets a 4 star rating. It checks all the safety "blocks". But in a real, versus theoretical crash with a Series 80 Land cruiser, it is a grease spot.
Since my background is military, I see it most often in those advocating revisionism in Soviet tank design. On paper, the Soviet T-series of tanks are superior to anything produced by the West. In practice, the Soviet T-series, at best, provides some mildly amusing form of target practice for Western tank crews.
The Toyota Aygo is an incredibly well designed vehicle, and gets a 4 star rating. It checks all the safety "blocks". But in a real, versus theoretical crash with a Series 80 Land cruiser, it is a grease spot.
Then too, there's this: in the most severe impacts, the crumple-zone car's crankshaft will be in the trunk. It would take a semi-truck to do that to an 80. (Well, almost.) Consider:
Crumplecar hits brick wall; passengers in good shape, up to a point. Unless the force is great enough to crumple the crankshaft into the trunk. In which case, everyone's dead.
Non-crumplecar hits brick wall; passengers banged up, but the cabin remains intact. If the force is great enough to pancake a crumplecaar, the jolt may kill the non-cc passengers, and it may not. Still better odds than the crumplecar. Add airbags in the '95-'97s, and things look pretty good.
But, here's the thing. Most of the time, you're not hitting a brick wall (which you'd probably go through anyway, lessening the impact force because you're not absorbing all of it.) You're hitting another, smaller, lighter, lower car. Which, head-on, will probably stop and move backward when colliding with the 80--if it doesn't go under the front bumper (Corvette/Lambo/Maserati/Ferrari, anyone?), or bounce away like a tennis ball (Fiat, Cooper, Dumb Car, anyone?) The brunt of the impact is borne by the other vehicle and its occupants. The more of these electric shavers on the road, the safer the 80 becomes--and the more care we need to take to drive responsibly.
Drive Big and Go Home, I say.
Crumplecar hits brick wall; passengers in good shape, up to a point. Unless the force is great enough to crumple the crankshaft into the trunk. In which case, everyone's dead.
Non-crumplecar hits brick wall; passengers banged up, but the cabin remains intact. If the force is great enough to pancake a crumplecaar, the jolt may kill the non-cc passengers, and it may not. Still better odds than the crumplecar. Add airbags in the '95-'97s, and things look pretty good.
But, here's the thing. Most of the time, you're not hitting a brick wall (which you'd probably go through anyway, lessening the impact force because you're not absorbing all of it.) You're hitting another, smaller, lighter, lower car. Which, head-on, will probably stop and move backward when colliding with the 80--if it doesn't go under the front bumper (Corvette/Lambo/Maserati/Ferrari, anyone?), or bounce away like a tennis ball (Fiat, Cooper, Dumb Car, anyone?) The brunt of the impact is borne by the other vehicle and its occupants. The more of these electric shavers on the road, the safer the 80 becomes--and the more care we need to take to drive responsibly.
Drive Big and Go Home, I say.
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Here's something to consider when talking about sedans, coupes, compacts, etc..
But hey, you don't have to take my word for it. Germany's ADAC testing body decided to see how ENCAP & IIHS 5-Star rated vehicles perform in crashes at higher speeds.
From ADAC:
5-Star rated cars that were crash tested at 100kp/h (62mph) showed very high potential for fatal injuries, the crash safety performances at those speeds would have resulted in a failure to pass regulations if the vehicles performed like that at the slower standard crash test speeds.
The take away here is that if you're going to drive a 5-Star rated sedan, remember that those ratings are predicated on impact speeds of 35-to-40mph. So it's important that you impact speeds are never 50mph or above, and never against a larger & heavier vehicle.
Out driving your vehicles capabilities (or your own) is never a good thing with regards to good health & survival.
- The NHTSA performs crash tests at 35mph
- The IIHS & ENCAP perform crash tests at 40mph
- Car manufacturers engineer their crumble zoned cars to perform well & provide good safety in accidents at those speeds, if you increase the speed of impact the cars crumble zones (engineered for 35-40mph crashes) causes the car to collapse into the occupants increasing the odds of life threatening injuries
But hey, you don't have to take my word for it. Germany's ADAC testing body decided to see how ENCAP & IIHS 5-Star rated vehicles perform in crashes at higher speeds.
From ADAC:
5-Star rated cars that were crash tested at 100kp/h (62mph) showed very high potential for fatal injuries, the crash safety performances at those speeds would have resulted in a failure to pass regulations if the vehicles performed like that at the slower standard crash test speeds.
The take away here is that if you're going to drive a 5-Star rated sedan, remember that those ratings are predicated on impact speeds of 35-to-40mph. So it's important that you impact speeds are never 50mph or above, and never against a larger & heavier vehicle.
Out driving your vehicles capabilities (or your own) is never a good thing with regards to good health & survival.
35-40 combined speed, or each vehicle? And what's with the bumper standard--must be able to withstand a crash at 2.5mph??? That's a junk standard lobbied by automakers. Great if a shopping cart rolls into you at Walmart. Gimme some armor...
I have stock brakes at the moment, and I'm amazed at how fast and well they slow this behemoth in a pinch. That said, those slotted DBAs seem to be even better...
I was referring to a single vehicle hitting a static or immovable object, as per the crash testing standards...
NHSTA & ENCAP
The IIHS & ADAC perform vehicle vs vehicle crash tests where both are traveling at 40mph, but those tests are among the many performed that aren't currently factored into the government safety ratings (e.g. multi-car collision testing)... the full or summarized data reports from those type of tests isn't typically made available (but at least they sometimes release the videos).
Example 1:
Example 2:
70kph/43mph multi-vehicle crash scenario (both cars are 5-Star rated)
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wow, that yaris got obliterated by the camry. Horry shat. Although I shouldn't be surprised. I hit a yaris in my old '99 Infiniti g20 (or rather, he hit me crossing a parking lot ignoring the lanes), and even the pipsqeak g20 punted the yaris and smashed the whole radiator support.
A Camry has a stopping distance in the 120ft range, only 10-15ft shorter than a LC.... do you move out of the lane every single time a Camry is behind you too?
jvazquez53
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One of the safest vehicles you can buy... My daughter walked away from this accident. The Mercedes total loss. The truck still running today.
15ft sure makes a huge difference. It's about the length of two small cars which will be crashed in such event and pushing the third one in front of them forward.
