When it comes to safety, many prospective buyers and owners assume that the bigger the vehicle, the more protected they’ll be. However, recent testing from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) revealed that this may not always be the case, particularly in regard to the Chevy Tahoe.
IIHS elected to test a trio of popular full-size SUVs; the Jeep Wagoneer, the Ford Expedition and the Chevy Tahoe. Of these three offerings, only the Wagoneer earned the “Top Safety Pick” rating.
“The huge mass of these large SUVs provides some additional protection in crashes with smaller vehicles, though that also means they present more danger to other road users,” IIHS President David Harkey claimed in a prepared statement. “The flip side of their large size is that there is a lot more force to manage when they crash into a fixed obstacle like a tree or bridge abutment or the barrier we use in our front crash tests.”
In regard to the Tahoe specifically, the Bow Tie brand’s full-size SUV earned a “Good” rating in just the “Side” and “LATCH ease of use” criteria. In the five remaining categories, the Tahoe earned an “Acceptable”, “Marginal”, or “Poor” rating.
“These discouraging results show that some popular vehicles still lag behind in meeting the most advanced safety standards,” IIHS Vehicle Research Center Vice President Raul Arbelaez remarked. “The good news is that the top performer in this class proves that automakers can readily address these problems.”
It’s worth noting that General Motors doesn’t have a single vehicle that earned either a “Top Safety Pick+” or “Top Safety Pick” status for 2024.
As a reminder, the Chevy Tahoe is offered with a few powerplant choices, including the naturally aspirated 5.3L V8 L84 gasoline engine, rated at 355 horsepower and 383 pound-feet of torque, the naturally aspirated 6.2L V8 L87 gasoline engine, rated at 420 horsepower and 460 pound-feet of torque, and the 3.0L I6 LM2 turbodiesel Duramax engine, rated at 277 horsepower and 460 pound-feet of torque.
Under the skin lies the GM T1 platform, while production takes place at the GM Arlington plant in Texas.
Be sure to subscribe to GM Authority for Chevy Tahoe news, Chevy news, GM safety news, and more obsessive-compulsive GM news coverage.
Comments
That “poor” rating was in headlamps. I personally prefer GM’s headlamps, as they tend to be a little softer and don’t blind me in bad weather nor my perifrials. They also didn’t used to rate headlights, until the European brands saw it as an opportunity to ding American brands with no input on their ends. I prefer GM’s headlamps myself to anything on a VW or BMW. As far as I’m concerned, these are really safe vehicles and the feds can shove it.
“ In regard to the Tahoe specifically, the Bow Tie brand’s full-size SUV earned a “Good” rating in just the “Side” and “LATCH ease of use” criteria. In the five remaining categories, the Tahoe earned an “Acceptable”, “Marginal”, or “Poor” rating.”
So you are OK with Acceptable and Marginal?
Absolutely!!! Because the fact is, in the crash test, the dummy didn’t get mangled. The difference between “good” and “poor” isn’t death, it’s the difference between the ca crumbling enough that you get some seatbelt burn or not in a subjective test that requires an empty fuel tank because they aren’t even testing if the car will catch fire in a crash. Even the best rated car will not save you from a train/tree, and the worst rated car will survive handily hitting a guardrail. Any car that passes these tests is relatively safe, and you will live in a standard crash.. Not a single car in this test will survive hitting a peterbilt head on.
I couldn’t care less. I have never considered a safety rating when selecting a vehicle.
you should. some vehicles will take your legs out at 30mph…. thats arguably an outcome worse than total oblivion
So the Europeans came over to the US and pulled the rug tight out from under GM while it was sleeping at the wheel? Quit making excuses for sub standard practices. How come GM doesn’t have a single vehicle with good IHS rating?
My thing is, instead of actually building stronger frames and structures. They have become far too dependent on electronic safety devices, that supposedly make a vehicle safer. Unfortunately, I have yet to see where this crap actually makes vehicles safer, but get in crash , especially from the front and insurance is most likely going to total it, because of all the damn stuff. You to be, you could knock a small tree down and hardly leave a rub mark, let alone thinking about the possibility of totaling the vehicle. That’s what happens when insurance and the government get involved with vehicle design!
The Tahoe’s bigger than 80% of everything else on the road. It’s safe enough. Doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be better against other vehicles its own size, but let’s not with the “bigger isn’t always safer.” Because it is.
recently here was a major head on crash.. somebody crossed highway median and slammed into a tahoe…
tahoe occupants walked. the other family.. did not.
take your ratings and shove em. real world data conflicts your ratings. they are as valid as german and japanese emissions lol
Why is everyone so angry? why does everyone have to “shove it”? And one incident is an anecdote, not proof of anything. I agree that generally heavier vehicles are safer, but it is a more complicated story.
there are many, its not an anecdote. this is just the most recent that came to memory on this topic. real world data makes the hoe and sub very safe with occupants surviving and walking away while others in higher rated vehicles do not.
and here we go with the usual cope. somebody said something i dont like, they must be angry. do you people even stop to consider linguistic context before you type that. serious question here, do you..
6 keyboards 4 walls and 17 babies were broken and punched in the production of this rage post. happy now.
I think you just proved my point. I believe my take on the “linguistic context” of using the phrase “shove it” was well founded. Expressing oneself in writing means being thoughtful in the use of words and phrases. I think any reasonable person would see the use of this phrase as an expression of anger.
And I am not “happy now”. I wasn’t looking for an apology, sarcastic or otherwise. Just wondering why posters on these sites so often seem to be aggrieved. When TWO posters use the term “shove it”, in comments on a relatively innocuous article, I wonder what is inspiring such a response.
As for the data regarding real world safety of these vehicles, it may very well exist, and if it does, I would not dispute it. However, you must agree that in your post, there was a clear inference that the one example presented was sufficient proof of their over all safety record.
This is typical BS . Drop the Chevy off the Empire State Bldg and run the competition into a feather bed and try to tell us a toyo or vw is safer. I had to drive a bmw on a recent trip to Wales and that is without a doubt the worst piece of junk I have ever driven . My 1978 Chevette was much better only the GPS was in my head back then and not on the dash.
“The huge mass of these large SUVs provides some additional protection in crashes with smaller vehicles, though that also means they present more danger to other road users,” IIHS President David Harkey claimed. I can’t wait for David to report about the 2,000 to 5,000 extra pounds an EV weighs when it crashes into a 3,800-pound car.
It looks to me like the Jeep did better, particularly with respect to the driver’s legs in the partial overlap test. If I was unlucky enough to experience a similar situation, I would be very happy to leave with my legs intact.
This testing revealed that even with similar size and weight, one vehicle outperformed the other two. Hopefully GM will pay attention to the test results and do a better job of crash engineering next time around. Ford apparently has some work to do as well.
Headlight functionality is a big deal. I’m seeing a lot more debris on the road than I used to. The hard to see debris like semi-truck tire tread can be a serious hazard. You need good headlights to pick out black debris on a black road. IMHO, headlight functionality has taken a back seat to headlight styling. For me, that’s a problem that needs to be addressed sooner than later.
GM used to have a 60-70% market share in the US during the 1950s. What happened? 115 years of making cars and still can’t make a safe vehicle? Overpriced, cheap plastic, cheap materials, made in Mexico, uncomfortable, $150 per hour labor at the dealer hunk of junk.
Someone gttn paid ! The IIHS will never run out of ideas inventing new ways to crash test a vehicle clearly the full size gm suv’s did alot better than the expedition and jeep ! How about making safer drivers ? Its just aboutnmarketing and top safty picks ! Jeep will soon be defunked soon anyway !
I’d like to see some proof that the test results, which you apparently misinterpreted, were in some way scored based on pay offs. I’m willing to believe it, if you can provide the proof.
FWIW, I’m not particularly happy with the published results. We drove Suburbans as family transportation for a long time. I like the vehicles. It looks like a well equipped one will easily go for $70k+. At that price level, I’d like to see better safety engineering and better lights. It can’t cost that much more to get it right.
I mean this is not gonna stop GM sales not at all . GM and the Wonderful Marry Barra knows they gonna sells vehicles regardless so crash ratings doesn’t matter lol
Some people don’t even know that crash ratings exist, others are very interested in those results. Crash ratings typically weren’t the first thing I looked at when buying a car, but I did check them out. If the results were significantly poorer than competing vehicles, I’ve been known to move on.
My guess is that GM will not see a significant loss of sales as a result this test. The combination of the impact testing and the poor headlight performance might change my mind if I were shopping in that market. The test results did remind me that I need to test drive a prospective purchase at night to check the headlight performance. Apparently, you can’t just assume it’s going to be acceptable.
What part did it fail? The newly introduced IIHS “Drop a Loaded Conex container on the car” test?
I believe it was the partial frontal barrier test. The test appeared to mimic a crash into a power pole or bridge abutment with the left 18-20 inches of the vehicle making full contact. Probably a fairly common crash scenario.
I also found it interesting that not a single GM vehicle earned a Top Safety Pick+ or Top Safety Pick for 2024. For all I know this may have been the only Jeep model to earn that distinction. However, that’s one more than GM. It would be interesting to know if GM had any comments regarding the testing.