Here's just how safe the new Honda Amaze is in SA | Life

12 Sep 2019

Janine Van der Post

Image: AA

The new Honda Amaze might not be a striking hot model, but it's snubby, comforting face is becoming more popular, and it's certainly getting more love as time goes on. Launched in October 2018, the little car has redefined itself as a new standard of compact sedans.

This year started off with a bang in January which saw the Amaze move 115 units off showroom floors. From February through to May, figures were between 42 and 56 for that period. In June, numbers spiked to 102, 93 (July) and 71 in August.

Just how safe is Honda's popular Amaze in South Africa? Global NCAP and the Automobile Association of South Africa has launched the third round of #SaferCarsForAfrica crash test results with the welcome support of the FIA Foundation and Bloomberg Philanthropies earlier this year.

The Amaze's platform makes use of high-tensile steel, which translates to a lightweight but rigid construction.

Honda also claims its features the automaker's Advanced Compatibility structure, "which allows for specific, programmed deformation of body structures in the case of a collision, while ensuring the integrity of the passenger safety cell."

The Amaze comes with dual front airbags, inertia reel seatbelts front and rear, and IsoFix child seat anchors. It also includes ABS brakes with electronic brake force distribution (EBD).

The Amaze showed good safety performance for adult occupants but, says Global NCAP, "disappointing results for child occupant protection with one star for child occupancy."

The models tested by Global NCAP are the Toyota Avanza, Honda Amaze and Suzuki Ignis.

What do you think of the Honda Amaze? Do you own one? Tell us all about it, just email us

Honda Amaze - 4 stars for adult safety, 1 for child protection

The Honda Amaze achieved a solid four stars for Adult Occupant Protection in the frontal crash test at 64km/h. The vehicle structure was rated as stable as well as the footwell area. The car offers seatbelt pretensioners for both front passengers and seatbelt reminder for the driver.

Using the child seats recommended by Honda, the Amaze only achieved a one star rating for Child Occupant Protection. The child dummies contacted the interior of the car, showing evidence of head exposure and the probability of injury.

In the case of the 18-month-old CRS, the armrest opened (deployed) during the crash hitting the CRS, braking the handle lock and causing a rotation of the CRS that ended in the head of the dummy contacting the seat backrest.

In the case of the 3-year-old dummy, despite using a CRS with ISOFIX, its head contacted the interior of the car in the rebound phase. Both head contacts of both child dummies brought the head score to zero and with the broken CRS for the 18 month old dummy the full points of the dynamic test for this dummy were lowered to zero.

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