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Chevrolet, GMC Pickups Suffer In IIHS Passenger-Side Crash Tests

The insurance-funded IIHS published its latest round of crash safety results for pickup trucks, and it wasn’t the peachiest news for General Motors.

The Chevrolet Silverado, Colorado, GMC Sierra, and Canyon all failed to score higher than a “Marginal” rating in the passenger-side small-overlap front crash test. This scenario is when the front corner of the vehicle strikes another vehicle or an object such as a tree or utility pole. “Marginal” is just one rung above the worst rating of “Poor.” Vehicles can also be rated “Acceptable” and earn the highest rating of “Good.”

2019-Chevrolet-Silverado-Red-Front-Three-Quarter

The Ford F-150, Ram 1500, and Nissan Titan aced the crash test with “Good” ratings. Meanwhile, the Toyota Tundra faired most poorly. The full-size pickup earned a “Poor” rating in the category, and crucially, earned a “Poor” rating when looking at how the truck maintained its structure in the event of this kind of crash. The IIHS observed protrusion of 15 inches into the passenger side of the cabin, which severely increases the risk of leg and hip injury in a crash. The F-150, on the other hand, showed just five inches.

The Silverado, Colorado, Sierra, and Canyon also all earned “Poor” ratings for their structure, which means they also showed signs of passengers inflicted with more severe injuries in this kind of crash.

This isn’t to say Chevrolet and GMC pickups are unsafe, but they do house structures that are more easily compromised on the passenger-side of the vehicle. Each of GM’s trucks in the full- and mid-size segments earned “Good” ratings for the driver’s side small-overlap front crash test. Yet, every single truck on the market except for one performed quite poorly in one other area: headlights.

2019 GMC Sierra AT4 exterior 011

The IIHS rates headlights as an integral part of earning a Top Safety Pick and Top Safety Pick+ award. The Silverado, Colorado, Sierra, and Canyon all offer “Poor” headlights as their best option. The only truck to earn an “Acceptable” rating is the Honda Ridgeline, which combined with its other crash test results, becomes the only truck on the market to earn a Top Safety Pick from the IIHS.

Former GM Authority staff writer.

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Comments

  1. This is pretty sad for the All new GM full size trucks! Considering these are new from the ground up I expected them to score really well. Makes me wonder where else they may have cut corners besides the interior.
    I have a ZR2 crew cab and really like it but also disappointed to see how poorly it scored as well!

    Reply
    1. It did score pretty well. It scored ‘GOOD’ on all other tests, like Driver-side overlap, moderate overlap, side, roof strength, head restrains and seats. It scored poorly on passenger side overlap which GM will have to address, but overall it did good.

      Reply
  2. This truck has been a disaster from the start. I have not read anything good about this truck yet. GM is got to stop cutting corners because Ford and Ram are not.

    Reply
    1. It has performed better AS A TRUCK than either the Ram or the F-150. The 2019 Ram is a gas guzzling future “Consumer Reports least reliable Full-size truck” winner and the F-150 is constantly being ridiculed for its bumper dragging suspension sag and dollar store interior quality. I guess it goes to show that modern journalists and “truck fans” are really just a tribe of soft snowflake millenials that can’t handle a truck designed to be a truck first and a car second. Ram and Ford are busy chasing the metro buyers and GM gets shamed by car reviewers for delivering a truck that doesn’t drag its bumper on the ground when there’s a little weight in the bed, for having a suspension that “rides like a truck”, and having a steel bed that won’t tear apart like a sode can if you try to use your truck for real work.

      Funny town so many Ford Sally’s show up here to tell when Ford was caught cheating in 2015 on crash tests. Oh wait Ford “claims” they didnt want to put those bars on the versions that weren’t expected to be tested because they ‘werent sure’ how well the bars would work”.. Give me a break! Ford even your snake PR team can come up with a betterblie than that!

      Reply
      1. As a long time owner of both GM and Ram pickups I’ll just say that those who keep dismissing Ram do so at their peril. Ram really takes the concept of continuous improvement to heart and my Rams have been super reliable. They just keep gaining on Chevy in market share while GM just doesn’t seem to know where they are going here.

        Reply
        1. Continuous improvement? They haven’t improved either engine in a decade! The real world fuel economy is worse than the truck it replaced. You might have had a “super reliable” Ram, but there’s a very good reason why FCA’s brands always line the bottom of the barrel in quality surveys. My Ram experience lived up to it’s poor ratings. Pinion bearing went out at 75k miles, water leaks, electrical glitches, driver’s seat started falling apart, transmission problems, misfire codes related to a bad lifter,etc.

          Reply
          1. Those are all maladies very familiar to GM pickup owners. My last GM pickup decided to eat it’s engine at 60K. I may work at GM but I refuse to drive “The Man’s”, or in today’s case “The Woman’s” vehicles.

            Reply
  3. What are the metrics for the lighting piece? Aren’t all of the new full sizes 100% LED – how does that rate as “poor?”

    Reply
    1. I don’t know how they work at all but remember that LED is just a type of light, they can still suck.

      Reply
    2. Just because something has LED doesn’t automatically make it better. The design of the headlight is what matters. I have owned and driven so many cars over the years. The old glass halogen headlights that my 70’s and 80’s cars had would light up the country side. The projector beams on my current Impala are marginal at best. The garish white bright LED lights on certain new cars like the Corolla are annoying when they approach you but work well when your the driver of the car. It will be interesting to see how the tiny slim headlights work in the real world on some of the newest designs like the 2019 Blazer and Hyundai Sante Fe.

      Reply
      1. Agreed, at the end of their use the old sealed beam Halogen lights were pretty good. My 87 Grand National with all 4 low and high beams on provides awesome light.

        Reply
  4. These reports are generally publicity for the IIHS.

    The reality is most of these trucks are safe and you would walk away from most crashes. Similar smaller vehicles would have fatal injury in similar real world crashes.

    Case in point the headlight issue. There is not one damn thing wrong with the headlamps. They all meet DOT limits and provide more than necessary lighting. Trust me people are not driving blind like they want you to think.

    I have one of these trucks and I see just fine and to be honest I get flashed for my headlamps even on low beam because they think they are high beam. But this gets the head lines and helps draw more funding.

    Also having known people who have had crashes in similar vehicles I can say they are safe as they walked away with only air bag burns.

    There was a time when the distance from Poor to the top rating was a wide gap but today they are splitting hairs.

    Where is the out cry on the smaller cars like the Fiat or other micro cars that just crush?

    Reply
  5. Here are more details that got left out here.

    2019 Colorado

    CRASHWORTHINESS

    Small overlap front Driver-side G

    Passenger-side M

    Moderate overlap front G

    Side G

    Roof strength G

    Head restraints & seats G

    The Silverado 2019 CRASHWORTHINESS

    Small overlap front Driver-side G

    Passenger-side M

    Moderate overlap front G

    Side G

    Roof strength G

    Head restraints & seats G

    As you can see is GM got Good in all areas but the one test the Moderate Overlap.

    The moderate overlap had to have been changed around 2017 as the Colorado in 2015-16 passed with a Good but 17-19 it got a Moderate?

    The truck itself has not changed other than an 8 speed transmission and updated 3.6?

    Check the results yourself.

    https://www.iihs.org/iihs/ratings/vehicle/v/chevrolet/colorado-crew-cab-pickup/2016

    Reply
  6. Why did they even bother to “update”? Whoever was in charge of the new Silverado/Sierra should be fired! And take all the bean counters with him/her!

    Reply
  7. I can’t believe the biggest US automaker developed a truck that is reference in nothing.

    Reply
  8. So yea these test are not realistic, unless you hit a brick wall any pole will move. Besides that a better test would be two vehicles hitting head on. Much more force.

    The other thing I have issue with is headlights. This is so subjective. I have 2019 Terrain Denali with LED. The lights light up great. There were a little high from factory but I fixed that. They rated them poor and they are not. But I have friend with a brand new ridgeline with leds. they light up the same as mine. He has been flashed many of times because of glare to other drivers and they are aimed right. Also NHTSA also test for high beams. In the Ridgeline you can’t even tell they are on they are so bad. But its gets a top pick. I don’t think so but again its subjective to the person.

    Reply
  9. GM has a long history of showing little concern for their owners’ safety. It’s disappointing that they still care so little. All of the tested vehicles are relatively new designs and in the case of the Silverado and Sierra are brand new. One would think they would’ve performed better but that would have required a commitment to safety that GM apparently still doesn’t have.

    I’ve long suspected that Toyota designs for the tests. Their products seemingly do well on established tests but throwing something new at them often reveals their weaknesses. The performance of the Tunda is indicative of this; it performed well on the driver’s side overlap test which Toyota knew about but when the IIHS switched sides and tested the passenger side, it flunked. In theory the passenger and driver side of the vehicle should be equally robust unless Toyota purposefully strengthened only one side to pass a test. Sadly GM seems to have done the same thing.

    The Silverado and Sierra test results are especially disappointing because the new trucks were developed in the Mary Barra era and after the embarrassing spectacle she endured before Congress over the faulty ignition switches, she appeared to commit the company to a new era of emphasizing safety. Perhaps that was just more GM lip service. Once again, Ms. Barra’s esteem in my eyes takes yet another tumble. Very sad how little she actually seems to care. She probably found a way to save $2.00 per vehicle again.

    Reply
    1. Ford has a FAR longer history of ignoring safety. They have attained a LEGENDARY status for their disregard fpr human life. Throughout the last 50 years they have strung together dozens a major safety defects that they attempted to conceal and were later leaked to the public. Several ofbtheirbmajor safety defects went unnoticed simply because they managed to get competitors’ defects into thebpuvlic eye to draw attention away from them during critical times. Indeed, Ford spends several tumes more money on legal expenses so their team can overwhelm multiple major safety coverups at once. Even Bill Ford has gotten in on the action, pretending he couldn’t remember major undeniable and incriminating evidence that proved his culpability in deadly defectsbhe didn’t take action on because at Ford Motor Company, profits trump safety.

      Reply
  10. Colorado – excusable due to being an older design that came out before the new tests were conducted.

    Silverado – not excusable because the new passenger side small overlap tests were no surprise. Ram obviously accounted for it in their structural design, why didn’t GM?

    Reply
  11. I dont give a dam about safety ratings! It would not have any effect on what vehicle I was going to buy. People who buy cars and trucks based on what a mag says

    Reply
    1. …..until you have been hurt in an accident. Trust me, you want a vehicle, regardless of make and model, that is going to keep you and your family safe.

      Reply
      1. Why do people feel the need to live in fear? They go threw life scared and its pathetic. Stop being scared of life, stop worrying about what ifs and butts!!!

        Enjoy your life and live life and have as much fun as possible

        Reply
  12. All these crash tests are a standardized test, performed exactly the same on all vehicles. Like the fuel economy tests, they may not reflect the real world reality of how things turn out. If you crash your new Chevy truck there’s an excellent chance you’ll survive, excepting a super high speed crash. Common sense.
    While the crash and fuel test rating may not reflect your experience, they are standardized, which means you can compare the results and pick your next vehicle somewhat informed. Taking them as an exact science is madness.
    Having said all this I’ll bet Chevy can put a brace or frame gusset somewhere and then ace the test.

    Reply
  13. Ouch. It really takes a while to interpret and compare the info, but just glancing at it, I’m surprised by the Silverado’s poor showing. Being the newest, and knowing that other GM vehicles like the Acadia have recently aced these tests, I expected it to shine. What’s really embarrassing is the Ram, which used to be a death trap, did much better.

    Ford had serious issues with the small overlap tests when the current F-150 came out and had to add crash bars to the frame to protect the cab’s integrity. Assuming they’re doable, it’s possible GM could add them and maybe even leap frog the others without much trouble.

    Shame about these tests though. It’s not like GM didn’t know they were coming.

    Shame that I have to repeatedly paste my comments sometimes to get them to show up.

    Reply
    1. It’s not a poor showing at all. The Silverado is rated good everywhere except front passenger side where it is NOT rated poor, but marginal. A better question would be, what is the structural difference between the right and the left front fenders?

      Reply
    2. “Poor showing”? It got a good rating in every single test except for two. For context, the previois Ram struggled to get 3 out of 4 stars in several crash tests. The 2019 Tundra was a miserable failure inmultiple tests here. The Supercab F-150 showed just what kind of spineless deceitful company Ford is when they tried to game the crash tests in 2015. The 2019 GM truck tests are FAR from a poor showing.

      Reply
  14. Write a negative article, get more views, get that coveted social engagement (angry negative comments) and make more money….welcome to internet “journalism”.

    As scott3 posted, trucks did very well on a lot of the tests. Did the other guys do well on all thier tests? Wouldn’t know because all the article concentrates on is the negative GM aspects. This site didn’t used to be like this.

    Reply
    1. Not only are all web stories acurate but neither are the posters all legitimate on the stories.

      Today reporting news by the facts is gone. The stories in the media print were often and still are driven by advertising. Web stories are a bit public observation, advertising driven and marketing.

      The problem is half the people don’t know better or are just that ignorant.

      The IIIHS would be all but ignored and unfounded if they never found anything wrong and sensationalized it.

      The web is still it bleeds it leads true or not.

      Reply
    2. No it most certainly did not Dave, I have often thought a few on this site (even on this thread) need a troll score card put on them!

      Reply
  15. I don’t believe GM wants to kill its customers as that is not good for repeat business

    Reply
  16. It’s a disappointment, and not the first for this truck. I’ve said it before, and I like Chevy trucks, this truck wasn’t designed to lead in its class, just to compete. I just read a comparison road test on the new Blazer. It finished mid pack and it’s just hitting the market. I’m beginning to question Ms. Barra’s Leadership.

    Reply
    1. The new Blazer did beat out the new Honda Passport and revamped Ford Edge in two different magazine comparisons. These are opinions and not always facts. The reason C&D liked the Blazer better was the main thing they care about with any test. How it handles. They put this above all else in most of there reviews.

      Reply
    2. It got top ratings on everything but the right front corner and even that was not “poor”. And I don’t know why the right front would be less safe than the left front.

      Reply
  17. GM will have to do something to beef up the passenger side structure for this very focused impact test. The rest of the impact tests for these GM trucks were good.

    Reply
  18. As for LED lighting and their glare effect to oncoming traffic, the problem is that the lighting companies have not figured out how to project the beam with a sharp cut off as have the older HID and filament lights bulbs. The problem seems to be that the LED lights have multi element bulbs, that is each bulb has from 4 to 6 LED elements and not a single light element as all the previous light bulbs do. Because of this multi LED element arrangement with each element being in a different physical position within the bulb envelop it seems impossible to focus each LED element in a dedicated focal plane. The result is non focused or scattered light pattern and consequently blinding glare to on coming traffic.

    Reply
  19. THIS THING IS A DEATH TRAP!!!!

    Another reason why Ford and now RAM are outselling this truck. They both aced this test. Totally unacceptable for a totally new design.

    Reply

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