Kia Motors is one automaker that constantly comes out with vehicles that aren’t only stylish but also safe. In 2018, it quickly became one of the safest car brands in America when more than eight vehicles in the Kia Motors lineup received a Top Safety Pick+ from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS). Every vehicle to come from Kia Motors since 2018 has also received an award for safety from the IIHS, such as the 2019 Kia Stinger (Top Safety Pick+), the 2020 Kia Soul Receives (Top Safety Pick+) the Kia Telluride (Top Safety Pick +), and the Kia Seltos in Australia, based on Aussie specs, with a 5-star safety rating from the Australasian New Car Assessment Program (ANCAP). For the 2020 model year, we have a bit of an echo, because six Kia Motors vehicles just received Top Safety Pick Ratings from the IIHS.
This time around, the 2020 Telluride, Sorento, Sportage, Soul, Stinger and Forte received a 2020 Top Safety Pick rating. Of course, the IIHS has a special way of testing each vehicle to give each a safety rating, and most of the time, a safety award can come down to an option on the vehicle that consumers wouldn’t get standard, or not available in every trim. In the case of these Kia Motors vehicles, that difference is whether or not the vehicle is equipped with front crash prevention and specific headlights. A typical line that most vehicles don’t cross, with only high-end trims getting advanced safety features these days.
Regardless, each Kia Motors vehicle met the stringent standards of the IIHS to qualify for the Top Safety Pick rating, including the standards for crash readiness, build integrity, and an assortment of available and standard safety systems. IIHS has six tests that vehicles are put through, and then rates each vehicle on the following scale: “Poor”, “Marginal”, “Acceptable”, and “Good”. The six tests consist of the crashworthiness, or how well a vehicle handles a crash, when an incident occurs in the small overlap front, moderate overlap front, each side of the vehicle, its roof strength, and the safety of the head restraints.
Testing the safety and crash prevention systems also come to play, and Kia Motors is slowly increasing the safety of its entire lineup by adding its available Kia Drive Wise package to each model. This package adds an assortment of advanced safety features to a vehicle, including blind spot collision warning (BCW) system with lane change assist, rear-cross traffic collision warning (RCCW), lane departure warning, lane keep assist, advanced smart cruise control (ASCC), and Kia’s driver attention alert (DAA) system, to name a few. These can really make the difference in a driving experience.
“Kia is committed to building the safest vehicles possible…These six TSP ratings from IIHS reflect that commitment and reaffirms Kia’s continued effort to strive for safety improvement and advancement in every model we produce.” – Michael Cole, president, Kia Motors America
That’s six Kia Motors vehicles that receive a Top Safety Pick rating from the IIHS for the 2020 model year. Will they pass their record of eight this year? Follow along with Miami Lakes Kia social media and look for a safe Kia Motors vehicle when you stop by Miami Lakes Automall.