This car also comes with a choice of new exterior colors such as Amethyst Gray, Gray Dakota, Scuba Blue, and Red. New customers can also choose a new 17-inch wheels, and 18 inch new. In the interior, riders will be treated to leather seats, lever gear and instruments with a gray background. Audi has not announced the price of the Audi A3 and S3 2011.
Hatchback buyers tend to fall into two camps: people who are looking for a sporty compact, and people who are looking for utility on a budget. One thing both camps should be concerned with, however, is safety. While there’s a perception that budget-friendly compact hatchbacks aren’t safe, there are actually a number of models with good crash-protection ratings and innovative safety features. You just have to know what to look for.
Driving a Hatchback Safely.
Hatchback drivers have a few advantages over people who drive coupes or sedans. In most hatchbacks, visibility tends to be good. Most hatchbacks have an upright chair-like seating position, which gives drivers a commanding view of the road ahead. Plus, because hatchbacks have high rooflines and lots of glass, side and rearward visibility tend to be good as well.
However, you still need to check the visibility carefully when you test drive a hatchback. Some newer hatchback models have SUV-like styling. On models like the Kia Soul and Nissan it can be tough to see objects that are directly behind you because they have an upright design with a rear window that’s far off the ground. Other hatchbacks, like theHonda Fit and Kia Forte hatchback have rear windows that are lower to the ground, making it easier to see if there is anything behind you.
Even if a hatchback doesn’t have the upright styling of an SUV, its design can impact visibility. For example, the rear roof pillars in the Nissan Versa are very wide: this makes the car stronger, but it also makes the pillars difficult to see around. The same is true for the Scion xD No matter how much you like a hatchback’s styling, make sure it won’t get in the way of safe driving.
Cargo and Safety
Hatchbacks are great for hauling cargo. But, filling a hatchback’s cargo area with your gear brings safety issues into play. You should always keep cargo separate from passengers. If cargo simply has to be in the passenger compartment, make sure it’s secure. In an accident, you don’t want cargo flying around.
Hatchbacks are popular with pet owners because it’s easy to put your dog or cat in the back and keep your seats clean. However, if you’re putting your pet in your hatchback’s cargo area, you need to secure it -- for Fido’s safety and for yours. In a crash at 50 miles per hour, an unrestrained ten-pound dog will exert about 500 pounds of pressure on any object it hits. That includes you. An 80-pound unrestrained dog in a 30-mile-per-hour crash will exert about 2,400 pounds of pressure. That’s like getting hit by a Honda Civic.
Luckily, hatchbacks are meant for cargo and can carry a lot of it safely. The Volkswagen Golf has 12.4 cubic feet of space in its cargo area. That’s enough for a few suitcases. The Honda Fit has a whopping 20.6 cubic feet of cargo space -- more than most other small hatchbacks -- behind its backseats. If you routinely haul a lot of cargo, look into optional cargo management features like bins and nets, which keep your stuff secure.
Hatchback Crash Test Ratings
Before buying any hatchback, you need to check out its crash-test ratings. Crash tests are controlled collisions that measure how good a car is at protecting the people inside it. It’s no guarantee of how a car will perform in a real collision, but it’s one of the strongest indicators of vehicle safety that shoppers have.
Two organizations complete crash-test ratings: the federal government’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and the Insurance Institute of Highway Safety (IIHS). You might be familiar with NHTSA scores: cars, trucks and SUVs earn stars (five stars is the best) for how well they protect occupants in front- and side-impact crashes. They also earn stars based on their likelihood of rolling over in a single vehicle crash, and get an overall rating. IIHS also rates vehicles in front- and side-impact crashes, but they also test roof strength and how good the seats are at protecting occupants in rear-impact collisions. IIHS gives scores that range from “Good” to “Poor.” IIHS also names “Top Safety Picks.” Cars that earn “Top Safety Pick” status get the best scores possible on all crash test measures and have standard electronic stability control.
Hatchback crash-test scores can vary considerably, so do your research before you buy. For example, the hatchback hybrid earns three stars in front- and side-impact crash protection, but gets a five-star rollover score. Overall, it only gets three stars from NHTSA. By contrast, the Subaru Impreza wagon is a hatch that does better in crash tests. It’s an IIHS “Top Safety Pick.”
One other thing hatchback buyers have to pay attention to is which model is being crash tested. For example, there’s a hatchback version of the Nissan Versa, but the sedan model was the only one tested by NHTSA. The same is true for the Ford Fiesta While these hatchbacks have similar engineering to their sedan counterparts, bear in mind that the crash-test results may not match what you encounter in the real world. Also, if you’re considering both a two-door and four-door hatchback, pay attention to which body style the crash-test results apply. TheWolk, for example, can have two or four passenger doors, but the four-door models are the ones that get crash tested.
Key Hatchback Safety Features
Anti-lock brakes, stability and traction control are the three active safety features that smart hatchback buyer should look for. They’re called active safety features because they can actually step in and help you avoid having an accident altogether. Anti-lock brakes keep your brakes (and thus wheels) from locking. Locked wheels almost always mean a skid, which means a loss of control, which means a crash. Ditto stability and traction control. Those systems constantly monitor your wheels. If one starts to travel at a different speed than the others, which indicates a loss of traction, the systems step in, selectively applying the brakes to pull your car out of a skid. It works so seamlessly that you probably won’t even notice it happening, but when you avoid a crash, you’ll be glad they were there.
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