The 2019 and 2020 model year Ram 1500 is the only light duty pickup truck to receive the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety’s coveted Top Safety Pick+ rating, with the GMC Sierra, Chevrolet Silverado, Ford F-150 and other competitors missing out on the designation.
The IIHS only awards a vehicle with the Top Safety Pick+ designation if earns good ratings on the driver-side small overlap front, passenger side small overlap front, moderate overlap front, side, roof strength and head restraint tests. These days, they must also have advanced or superior rating for frontal crash prevention technology and, crucially, a good headlight rating. Many new vehicles will get docked points for having headlights that are not powerful enough, or sometimes having lights that are too bright and are positioned in a way where they may blind oncoming drivers.
Headlights were the only thing keeping the Ram 1500 from receiving the award previously. With the introduction of available curve-adaptive LED projector headlights with high-beam assist from May 2019 onward, the truck received a good headlight rating, making it the first-ever light duty pickup to qualify as a Top Safety Pick+.
In addition to its new headlights, the IIHS also awarded FCA’s and Ram’s frontal crash prevention system as superior, saying it avoided collisions successfully in its 12 and 25 mph track tests and has a forward collision warning component “that meets the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s criteria.”
The GMC Sierra would need to improve in a number of areas in order to be considered a Top Safety Pick+, as would the Chevrolet Silverado. In Crew Cab trim, both trucks received a marginal rating in the Small Overlap Front Passenger Side tests and had poor headlight ratings. The IIHS also found the LATCH system in both trucks to be a bit difficult to use, giving it a marginal rating. The F-150 Crew Cab also had a poor headlight rating and moderate LATCH ease of use, although it had superior crash protection in Small Overlap Front testing.
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Source: IIHS
Comments
Good grief, did they phone this generation of Silverado in?
I am sure they nailed the SUV’s, but these pickups are GM’s best seller. Why are they not sweating the small stuff on them?
The GMC looks awesome, but the Silverado’s front fender fangs are mostly a miss. The interiors for both are actually a step down from the previous generation. They are expensive as hell while being available in fewer cab/bed configurations. The ride quality is meh. Just about the only thing they probably beat the Ram in are in areas that aren’t apparent on the test drive: resale and expected reliability.
They need to overhaul the interior, perfect the performance in the IIHS crash tests, ditch the front fangs in the Silverado half ton, re-work the front end on the lower and mid trim Silverado HD trucks, offer a half ton extended cab long bed and a a half ton regular cab short bed model (already offered overseas), and increase the output of the 5.3L and 4.3L engines.
Ram has outdone Ford and General Motors in this segment with a very competitive product. Chrysler has always been very good with their design quality – but they should not be competitive with Ford and General Motors in powertrain variety, available configurations, and long term reliability.
The full sized SUV’s will be, unlike the pickups, fully baked and will remain class leaders – but is GM aware that a Ram-based Jeep Wagoneer is in the works? Jeep and Ram are Chrysler’s core competency. A lot of Tahoe and Yukon buyers also like Jeep and will be tempted to try the Wagoneer, which promises to be a more affordable, more reliable Range Rover. General Motors had better offer an very good AT4 Yukon and Z71 Tahoe to compete with that.
“…Just about the only thing they probably beat the Ram in are in areas that aren’t apparent on the test drive: resale and expected reliability.”
Resale values may have been higher in the past due to higher desirability when the old products were new but that may not continue. High resale tends to be related to how the vehicles were thought of, and how well they sold when they were in production. Given that the new FCA trucks are beating GM’s new trucks, I would expect the 2019 Ram to be worth more, not less, than the GM products as used vehicles a few years from now.
I agree with all of that. And it’s odd concerning the front end Chevy designs. They changed the good looking front end of the 02 Silverado into the angry slant eyed China man face on the 03-07’s. Most people hated that. Yet the GMC kept the same good looking face it had since the 99 introduction. When the GMT-900’s came out, they gave Chevy these weird fender bulges and again on the front ends, they gave them a bizarre look. This time not even with a full front bumper but with big bulging plastic bumper end caps that looked ridiculous. Yet the GMC looked great as usual with a full bumper and nice clean design.. Chevy redeemed itself with the 14-15 front ends on the next new truck. Even pointing out on it’s website that it now has a “Full front bumper” again. Here we are with the new T1’s though and it’s the same story. Yet another bizarre front end design on the Chevy.. I guess they forgot about the full front bumper thing. This time we get fangs on the side or fish gills instead of bulging plastic bumper end caps though. And yet again the GMC looks normal. I’d swear if I didn’t know any better it’s like they’ve purposefully been trying to kill off the Chevy truck line.
Dozens of guys I know who were Chevy diehards their whole lives have left Chevy over the last 10-15 years. Most went to Ford. The ones who couldn’t bring themselves to drive a Ford went to the GMC dealer instead. And now we have Dodge/Ram actually bringing their A-Game taking away more sales from Chevy. And I’m just talking about the 1500 front end designs. Now with this new HD being equally bizarre? I agree there too, it’s the low and mid trims. The High Country front end actually looks normal. They just need to offer that across the board with chrome bumpers and painted black bumpers on the work truck models and call it good.
The interior quality since the 98 model ended have gone downhill every generation except for the new model in 14. They actually turned it around. Now we’re back to the downhill slide there too. You’re right, they better not have phoned in the SUV’s because if what’s happened to the SIlverado happens to the Tahoe they’re in big trouble.
The Ram is ugly and drooping looking. The front of the Silverado is like by many people and looks sportier than the Ram. The interior is nice despite what everyone is saying. that large display in the Ram just like Tesla is horrible looking and a distraction for the driver. If I was buying a truck I would buy a Chevy or Gmc or even a ford f-150 over the ram any day.
I have driven both, and find that the lowered fenders on the RAM are much better for road visibility. I slightly prefer the external styling of the Silverado, but the impact on visibility far outweighs that.
Styling is always subjective, but the majority of people view the interior styling of the RAM as being a class ahead of Chevy/GMC. This is why GM are already working on an interior refresh.
I don’t know how you can say that large screen is horrible looking. It looks nothing like the inside of a Tesla, which I would agree looks horrible. Besides, this is just an option that many people may not choose.
IIHS used to be a very subjective group and used to just use hard objective data for their ratings. Today they use a lot more subjective data that often is not a honest full picture of a model.
The Crash data has been taken to levels that most models will never see. As for lights etc they all meet DOT regulations and at that point it becomes subjective to if it is bright or not bright enough.
The IIHS has become more a group that likes to push their agenda in the headlines to keep the funding coming in and have gotten away from their honest objective full disclosure data.
They just keep jacking up the standards and what passed last year will not pass this year. They know they hold the automakers hostage as if they contest their results they will look like they don’t care.
They also run up the standards to better raise rates on the insurance in some vehicles. Notice they work for the insurance industry.
“They just keep jacking up the standards and what passed last year will not pass this year”
Isn’t that good though? They are continually pushing the automakers to deliver safer vehicles which ultimately save peoples’ lives. I would argue that some carmakers design for the test meaning they don’t build the safest vehicles possible but build their products to pass a known test. Changing the tests around can reveal who is doing that. It is interesting that on the small overlap test, products were passing it when the driver’s side was tested but flunked when the passengers side was tested. One would think the frontal structure would be equally robust on both the passenger and drivers side unless one side was made more rigid to pass a test. That appears to be the case with these GM trucks. I applaud IIHS for their work.
C8.R you have to be scott3 !!!
Now IIHS is just like consumer reports, or whatever other and sometimes like the RAM case ALL the publications and reviews and loyal GM customers, ALL agree on this .
What is GM paying you ?
Even if your a stock holder at this point you better get on board of GM stepping up the game here or even that stock is going to be worthless !!
What cant you see, you are it the worst minority for a long while regarding GM on this issue.
Are you one of those 7000 original focus group people and just can’t let it go how wrong you were !!
“Many new vehicles will get docked points for having headlights that are too bright and are positioned in a way where they may blind oncoming drivers.”
But it’s ok if your tailgate unexpectedly drops and dump your payload on the car’s behind you?
I can think of some worse than that… what if you had to recall over 3 million vehicles from 2015 – 2018 because the braking systems performance degrades with time? Or if your 2019 newly designed trucks are having reports of brake power assist and total brake failures??? Now that would be bad!!! Oh, wait, That’s GM!!!!! Failing Brakes in this day and age?!?! Not even funny!!!
Its really getting hard to ignore the RAM. I wouldn’t have even considered them an option 10 years ago. Hopefully this RAM spurns some better effort at GM for improved trucks.
I don’t know what the data would show but anecdotally I am noticing that Ram is attracting younger buyers. I am seeing lots of young males in the new Ram and for the GM products, I am seeing older buyers. This is how GM lost the mid-sized car market. Initially young buyers moved to the Honda Accord and Toyota Camry but GM was still selling a fair number of Chevrolet Celebrity and later Chevrolet Lumina models to their loyal older buyers. As time progressed, GM lost more and more of the market because they weren’t getting younger buyers to replace the older ones that were no longer in need of a new car at regular intervals.
It’s kind of amazing that GM built the new trucks and they can’t achieve the best crash ratings? I’m sure the new F-150 coming out will,so wee have Ford and Ram with top ratings but not GM? Really?
Aside from earlier comments from other subscriber’s…..my only grip after all the recalls were performed with my K2 GMC All Terrain was the Tenneco shocks. For many years GM used Bilstein for their Z71 suspension package. Not only did the Rancho/Tenneco’s sucked from a handling standpoint they started to rust, I mean big time after 3 Michigan winters. Worked with the engineering/sales team @ Bilstein this pass June installed their 6112 units and what a difference. The truck handles like one would expect when purchasing a “All Terrain” package. Noticed the T1’s still have the Rancho/Tenneco units. Really?
It’s a sad time to be a gm truck fan that ram just out did them in every way it seems be a Silverado fan it’s hard to say this but after this strike I hope they hire some truck people from FCa