1997 Volkswagen Golf

small car / 4-door hatchback

Crashworthiness

Rating overview
Moderate overlap front: original test

Key

  • G
    Good
  • A
    Acceptable
  • M
    Marginal
  • P
    Poor
  • Superior
  • Advanced
  • Basic

Some ratings use a scale of Poor to Good. Others range from Basic to Superior.

Moderate overlap front: original test

Rating applies to 1994-99 models

Tested vehicle: 1997 Volkswagen Jetta GL 4-door

The Volkswagen Jetta and Golf were redesigned for the 1993 model year and continued through the early part of the 1999 model year. Frontal airbags for both the driver and passenger were introduced as options beginning with the 1994 model year and were made standard in 1995. Note: the ratings apply only to cars equipped with the frontal airbags.

Overall evaluation
Structure and safety cage
Driver injury measures
Head/neck
Chest
Leg/foot, left
Leg/foot, right
Driver restraints and dummy kinematics
Dummy movement was reasonably well controlled. During rebound, the dummy moved toward the driver door, which had bowed outward, and its head hit the window frame and B-pillar.

Action shot taken during the frontal offset crash test.

Post-crash damage shot.

Footwell intrusion during the offset test contributed to the marginal performance of the structure, or safety cage.

Technical measurements for this test

Measures of occupant compartment intrusion on driver side

Test ID CF97018
Footwell intrusion
Footrest (cm) 26
Left (cm) 34
Center (cm) 31
Right (cm) 20
Brake pedal (cm) 24
Instrument panel rearward movement
Left (cm) 9
Right (cm) 7
Steering column movement
Upward (cm) 5
Rearward (cm) 7
A-pillar rearward movement (cm) 10

Driver injury measures

Test ID CF97018
Head
HIC-15 383
Peak gs at hard contact 82
Neck
Tension (kN) 1.4
Extension bending moment (Nm) 18
Maximum Nij 0.26
Chest maximum compression (mm) 36
Legs
Femur force - left (kN) 2.1
Femur force - right (kN) 3.4
Knee displacement - left (mm) 0
Knee displacement - right (mm) 8
Maximum tibia index - left 1.42
Maximum tibia index - right 0.98
Tibia axial force - left (kN) 1.9
Tibia axial force - right (kN) 4.6
Foot acceleration (g)
Left 81
Right 113

About the original moderate overlap front test