The car managed to smash its way only to a four star rating, mostly because, as the Euro NCAP says, the model failed to meet all the expectations when it came to adult and child occupant protection.
“Structures in the dashboard posed a risk of injury to occupants of different sizes and to those sat in different positions and protection for the knee/femur/pelvis body region was rated as marginal,” says the Euro NCAP.
"The front passenger airbag cannot be disabled to allow a rearward facing child restraint to be used in that seating position. The labels warning of the dangers of using a rearward facing restraint in that seating position were not sufficiently clear. The restraint of the 18 month dummy had instruction and warning labels which were not permanently attached and points were lost as a result."
As was to be expected, the carmaker isn't happy with the result, but says it is respecting the organizations decisions. In the past, high-end models have failed to meet all the required criteria in the crash tests, but went back to the drawing board, fixed the problems and successfully tried again.
Probably the same will happen with the XF. According to a company spokesman, Jaguar will look into what went wrong and, even if they won't necessarily fix it for the current version, the new model, which will be released in 2012, will definitely aim for all the five stars.
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