The new 2011 Sonata is not just safe: it’s safer than safe. The NHTSA (The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in layman’s terms) has awarded the Sonata the coveted 5-star overall vehicle score for safety and crash test ratings. This year’s tests were more rigorous than ever, requiring everything short of driving off a cliff into a fiery volcano (which is not advised in the Sonata or any other Hyundai model). The Sonata is built from the ground up with safety in mind. Features include an ultra-high-strength steel body structure, advanced airbag technology and Electronic Stability Control. The president and CEO of Hyundai, John Krafcik, commented on the superior rating. â€The 2011 Sonata furthers our commitment to safety with a suite of equipment and third-party test results that are unsurpassed in the category.†In fact, the Sonata was not just designed to withstand crashes, but to avoid them all together. The braking system was created with all the bells and whistles, including four-wheel disc brakes and an Anti-Lock Braking System (ABS). The system includes Brake Assist, which provides maximum force braking when a panic stop is detected, and Electronic Brake-force Distribution to automatically adjust the braking force to front and rear axles based on the vehicle loading conditions. The engineers at Hyundai pulled out all the stops when designing this vehicle (not literally, though - That would be awful.) Other safety features include standard six airbagsâ€"including dual front, front seat-mounted side-impact, and front and rear side curtain airbagsâ€"along with active front-seat head restraints. The Sonata also has seatbelts for all seating positions, front-seat seatbelt pretensioners and load limiters, and a rear-seat Lower Anchors and Tethers for Children system for child seats. So after receiving five-star side-impact, five-star rollover and four-star frontal crash test ratings, resulting in an overall five-star performance, it can be reasonably concluded that the Sonata is in fact a nimble tank camouflaged in a sleek mid-sized sedan shell. When it comes to purchasing a family vehicle, a lot of factors come into play, but the most important should be safety, and the Sonata reigns over this category.
Please Rate this Article 5 out of 54 out of 53 out of 52 out of 51 out of 5
Not yet Rated
