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lovelyemmz

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I've always been a Wrangler fan and have had a Jeep for the past 2 years. When I drive I don't usually stress over the fact that if I happened to get in a side-collision that there is a high risk of severe injury or death. Have you looked at the crash ratings for the JK Wrangler? It's pretty scary...

Anyways, my point of writing this is: Will the JL have improved crash results? Specifically, will the JL come standard with some sturdier doors, side airbags, airbag curtains and yada yada? It's been proven that the doors can be removed from the JL, so what's changed? Is this even possible?
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AWD

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These are the latest IIHS and NHTSA ratings for the Wrangler. It gets the highest rating "Good" and medium rating "Marginal" for front crash results. Maybe the new JL bumper will raise both ratings to "Good"

Current rollover and side impact could use a lot of improvement and these might both be better in the JL. The doors are again removable so that won't help but they could make the currently optional side front airbags standard and also add side airbags for the rear passengers. As for rollover protection, the leaked official images, spy pics, info are indicating that there'll be a structural windshield frame that remains in place even with the windshield glass folded down. That along with the new structural cage/bar that replaces the current sports bar will help rollover protection a ton. That's one big factor which pulling me in the direction of the JL vs JK. :like:


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The Great Grape Ape

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I've always been a Wrangler fan and have had a Jeep for the past 2 years. When I drive I don't usually stress over the fact that if I happened to get in a side-collision that there is a high risk of severe injury or death.
It's good you don't stress, because IIHS testing doesn't reflect real world results in mortality figures, nor in collision performance of the vast majority of Wranglers.
If it's a concern, get rock rails, which greatly improves side impact resilience and something the IIHS doesn't test with... same with side impact airbags.

From experience I, and many others, can tell you that they do far better in real life than in the compromised tests.

Have you looked at the crash ratings for the JK Wrangler? It's pretty scary...
Yeah, but did you actually read the reports and know what occured instead of just doing a cursory glance at the rating letter? Not nearly as scary as you make it out to be, especially when you realize that a lot of the rating was due to what 'might happen' not what actually happened in testing, and when you realize that they stripped the Wrangler down for testing and didn't use optional safety features they used on other vehicles on which it was optional too.

Anyways, my point of writing this is: Will the JL have improved crash results? Specifically, will the JL come standard with some sturdier doors, side airbags, airbag curtains and yada yada? It's been proven that the doors can be removed from the JL, so what's changed? Is this even possible?
Anything is possible, but much of it will likely not be 'standard' because some people want a basic vehicle from which they can add their own features, which means the IIHS likely will continue testing a configuration that represents less than 10% of Wranglers on the road.
Results are likely to improve, but unlike those of other mfrs like Toyota, the Wrangler's improvements will be for the real-world, not half-baked add-ons that are only meant to improve test results at the expense of occupant safety.
Look at how poorly other vehicles do compared to the Wrangler when they change testing methods so that they couldn't simply design for a test, and then decide which was the safer vehicle the whole time.
(edited last sentence for typos)
 
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The Doc

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When you have a BOF where the doors can and will be designed to be lightweight and removable you have to just expect the side impact crash ratings are not going to be good. It just comes with the territory, there's only so much engineering magic that can done when the fan base cares more about convenience of removing the doors than they do about safety.

However, if they can use heat treated aluminum doors they can make it both stronger and lighter as Ford has proved with the F-150. Aluminum is much denser than steel so they can also bolster it for added thickness while still being lighter than a thinner full steel door.
 

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When you have a BOF where the doors can and will be designed to be lightweight and removable you have to just expect the side impact crash ratings are not going to be good. It just comes with the territory, there's only so much engineering magic that can done when the fan base cares more about convenience of removing the doors than they do about safety.

However, if they can use heat treated aluminum doors they can make it both stronger and lighter as Ford has proved with the F-150. Aluminum is much denser than steel so they can also bolster it for added thickness while still being lighter than a thinner full steel door.

"Most spinnable tempers and alloys of aluminum dent, ding or scratch more easily as compared to steel. Steel is strong and less likely to warp, deform or bend under weight, force or heat. Nevertheless the strength of steel's tradeoff is that steel ismuch heavier /much denser than aluminum."

Just sayin'
 

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The Doc

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"Most spinnable tempers and alloys of aluminum dent, ding or scratch more easily as compared to steel. Steel is strong and less likely to warp, deform or bend under weight, force or heat. Nevertheless the strength of steel's tradeoff is that steel ismuch heavier /much denser than aluminum."

Just sayin'
Sorry yes that was a typo, steel is of course denser than aluminum which is why you can increase the thickness of aluminum while still being lighter. You should read up on the heat treated aluminum alloy used by Ford on their trucks. There's enough advancements that the traditional thinking of steel > aluminum isn't always true.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/joannmu...ts-fords-aluminum-f-150-is-the-safest-pickup/

https://www.forbes.com/sites/matthe...inferior-to-steel-not-on-the-2015-ford-f-150/

What kind of aluminum is the 2015 Ford F-150 made of?

The majority of the truck body is 6,000-series alloy aluminum, which is a heat-treatable alloy aluminum. Depending on the mix that you put in the alloy, but certainly more a function of how long you heat-treat it, you can get all manner of properties out of this aluminum. Some of our structural elements and our extruded pieces are heat-treated, and we end up with stronger pieces than the steel we’re replacing.

So the aluminum is actually stronger than steel? How is that possible?

Two real simple tricks. You can just choose to heat-treat it to a strength and replace a steel part that just happened to not be as strong. But you can also just add gauge [i.e. make it thicker]. Aluminum being a third as dense as steel, you can have three times the thickness before you have the same weight as steel. So in a lot of cases, we tailored it to the strength we needed.
 

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The Great Grape Ape

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Yeah, but that's aluminium vs old steel they're replacing. Put it up against AHSS and steel is again the better choice.

The biggest issue is that next-gen steel has been very slow coming to market, inutially announced in 2008 and expected in wide use by 2012, it's now expected for 2020 instead with some limited implementation already in European vehicles.

http://www.autosteel.org/~/media/Files/Autosteel/Research/AHSS/AHSS 101 - The Evolving Use of Advanced High-Strength Steels for Automotive Applications - lr.pdf

That and the updates in composite technologies would make much more sense for the safety structures than aluminium, but unfortunately we're not there yet.
 

Boatbuilder88

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From experience I, and many others, can tell you that they do far better in real life than in the compromised tests.
Did you experience an actual side impact? Do you have any pictures to share? Pics of the damage (or lack of) might help paint a real-world picture of side impact crash-worthiness.
 

JBlackoutK

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2 things, or 3 maybe. Most JL's just like the JK's will be lifted with some aftermarket rock rails. The higher off the ground will make for safer impact point if you get T boned so that cars are going mostly under you as opposed to through you. Increased risk of flipping over but also less fear of that now that we know the JL will have a factory roll cage tied into the frame. The B pillar on the Wrangler is stronger than most vehicles and holds up well in the crash tests.

Check the side airbag box (but realize it does little for rear passengers) and get a solid set of side rails like that from Smittybilt made from thick tubular steel. It won't make the doors stronger obviously but it's just another solid piece of metal protruding out from the side that must bend and absorb impact before it reaches you.
 

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The Great Grape Ape

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Did you experience an actual side impact? Do you have any pictures to share? Pics of the damage (or lack of) might help paint a real-world picture of side impact crash-worthiness.
The damage pics are in an archive at home, will post after holidays. Here's the pic from the scene, lifted Ram 2500 right in the door;

IMG_0091.JPG


As a follow up to what JBK says above, I only had Rubi rails on the Rubicon above, but now have Rubi rails and AceEngineering ontop of that, making it even more impact resistant.
 

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Looks like the B pillar held up decently in these crash video of the JK. But one thing I didn't think about is look how much flying glass there is in a side impact. Window tint can probably help lessen injuries from flying glass.

 

The Great Grape Ape

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Plus, note that the roof is off, not even soft top with screw-in compinents, robbing the Wrangler of some of it's structural strength. So absolutely worst case scenario.

I can attest to the glass shattering something crazy. That's where I got my two minor injuries (other than 'seat-belt rash') with a cut to the head & elbow and glass everywhere which I was picking out of stuff for months and found around the house from it falling out of briefcase or other items.

Remember that's also a 2008, and they haven't bothered to update the test in essentially a decade. Kinda lazy on the IIHS' part, as lazy as not bothering to test a 'typical' example of a vehicle on the road instead of a striped down base that next to no one drives. It would be like rating a passenger van by testing a fleet 'crew' model with no features at all including rear seat belts.
 

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The Ram rolled you over from direct side impact or did you turn your wheel? Must have been pretty high speeds. Was your Jeep lifted? I'm wondering how much your side rails played a part (if at all) when the point of impact was probably pretty high.
 

The Great Grape Ape

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The Ram rolled you over from direct side impact or did you turn your wheel? Must have been pretty high speeds. Was your Jeep lifted? I'm wondering how much your side rails played a part (if at all) when the point of impact was probably pretty high.
Rolled due to impact, was turning, but the force was in the opposite direction of the turning centrifugal force.

NO lift on Rubi, Mild lift on Ram. Chat Siderails didn't play as much of a role as they would've with a car. I'd need to look at pics again when I get home on Sunday/Monday to tell/recall if it took much of the impact. Mainly B pillar which was deformed about 2 inches IIRC, enough to push seat into armrest but not damage it.

Windows were at 3/4 and Freedom top was off on driver side, popped-off of the passenger side on impact (was not screwed in, just clipped in), briefcase flew out the top from the passenger side foot-well, both ejecting about 30+ ft.

Walked out the roof, and people were looking at me like I was the T1000 from T2, with cut on my head. Just wished I had not been in shock and properly responded to the "Hey you're bleeding" with the apropos "I Ain't Got Time to Bleed!"

Funny I was just going to add the Ace Engineering Rails that fall for winter driving (to prevent stone chips on door hinges and help shorties getting in at ski hill). Immediately got them for the replacement. Already had them on the cottage JK.

Higher stock ride-height did help versus something like the Mustang GT convertible that was originally the other option for DailyDriver.

Ram likely would've driven right overtop of a Mustang convertible.
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