NZ’s top utes and cars to have their ANCAP safety ratings expire this year

Some of New Zealand’s most popular utes and road cars will have their ANCAP safety rating expire this year.

However, that doesn’t prevent any of these cars from being sold here, nor does it affect imports that are not eligible for ANCAP ratings.

ANCAP’s car star safety ratings now expire after six years from when they are tested.

Vehicles with expired safety ratings cannot advertise former ratings, nor do they have to display it as an ‘unrated’ car.

In fact, most car consumers don’t take into account the date of when an ANCAP test was conducted but instead focus on the score.

Thus, by having expiration dates of six years, ANCAP says it will make shopping for a new car safer and easier.

Vehicles with tests done in 2015 or earlier will have their safety rating expire at the end of the year. That is unless they are replaced by a new model or a current model with updated safety features receives another test.

Some of these include the Ford Ranger and Mitsubishi Triton. Both are frequently New Zealand’s most sold vehicles and were number one and three in sales last month.

The Volkswagen Amarok hasn’t had a repeat test since it was awarded five stars in 2011.

Passenger cars with outdated tests include all variants of the Subaru WRX, Honda HR-V and Ford Everest.

Crash testing can be very expensive. An average test costs $750,000, per the Royal Automobile Club of Victoria, Australia.

Nearly every single new car release almost always boasts about new safety measures. Hence, it’s unlikely any 2022 model is less safe than its 2015 counterpart.

“It’s a very expensive process to test them,” Mazda Australia’s marketing director Alastair Doak told Drive.com.

“Fundamentally the cars haven’t changed. Obviously, we’ve updated them along the years, we’ve added more safety equipment over the years, so they’re no less safe yesterday than they are today.”