For enhanced safety, the front and rear seat shoulder belts of the Lincoln Nautilus have pretensioners to tighten the seatbelts and eliminate dangerous slack in the event of a collision and force limiters to limit the pressure the belts will exert on the passengers. The Honda Passport doesn’t offer pretensioners for the rear seat belts.
In the past twenty years hundreds of infants and young children have died after being left in vehicles, usually by accident. When turning the vehicle off, drivers of the Nautilus are reminded to check the back seat if they opened the rear door before starting out. The Passport doesn’t offer a back seat reminder.
The Lincoln Nautilus has standard driver and front passenger side knee airbags mounted low on the dashboard. These airbags helps prevent the driver and front passenger from sliding under their seatbelts or the main frontal airbags; this keeps them better positioned during a collision for maximum protection. Knee airbags also help keep the legs from striking the dashboard, preventing knee and leg injuries in the case of a serious frontal collision. The Passport doesn’t offer knee airbags.
The Nautilus has standard Post Collision Braking, which automatically apply the brakes in the event of a crash to help prevent secondary collisions and prevent further injuries. The Passport doesn’t offer a post collision braking system: in the event of a collision that triggers the airbags, more collisions are possible without the protection of airbags that may have already deployed.
The Nautilus (except Standard) offers an optional 360-Degree Camera to allow the driver to see objects all around the vehicle on a screen. The Passport only offers a rear monitor and front and rear parking sensors that beep or flash a light. That doesn’t help with obstacles to the sides.
To help make backing out of a parking space safer, the Nautilus has a standard rear cross-path warning system, which uses sensors in the rear bumper to alert the driver to vehicles approaching from the side, helping the driver avoid collisions. Only the Passport EX-L/Touring/Elite has a rear cross-path warning system.
Both the Nautilus and the Passport have standard driver and passenger frontal airbags, front side-impact airbags, side-impact head airbags, front wheel drive, height adjustable front shoulder belts, plastic fuel tanks, four-wheel antilock brakes, traction control, electronic stability systems to prevent skidding, crash mitigating brakes, daytime running lights, lane departure warning systems, rearview cameras and available all wheel drive.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration does 35 MPH front crash tests on new vehicles. In this test, results indicate that the Lincoln Nautilus is safer than the Honda Passport:
|
Nautilus |
Passport |
OVERALL STARS |
5 Stars |
4 Stars |
|
Driver |
|
STARS |
5 Stars |
5 Stars |
Neck Injury Risk |
22.4% |
28% |
Neck Compression |
21 lbs. |
36 lbs. |
|
Passenger |
|
STARS |
5 Stars |
4 Stars |
Chest Compression |
.4 inches |
.6 inches |
Neck Compression |
44 lbs. |
69 lbs. |
Leg Forces (l/r) |
145/201 lbs. |
478/436 lbs. |
New test not comparable to pre-2011 test results. More stars = Better. Lower test results = Better.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration does side impact tests on new vehicles. In this test, which crashes the vehicle into a flat barrier at 38.5 MPH and into a post at 20 MPH, results indicate that the Lincoln Nautilus is safer than the Honda Passport:
|
Nautilus |
Passport |
|
Front Seat |
|
STARS |
5 Stars |
5 Stars |
HIC |
84 |
109 |
Hip Force |
192 lbs. |
269 lbs. |
|
Rear Seat |
|
STARS |
5 Stars |
5 Stars |
HIC |
103 |
233 |
Spine Acceleration |
41 G’s |
42 G’s |
|
Into Pole |
|
STARS |
5 Stars |
5 Stars |
HIC |
257 |
406 |
Spine Acceleration |
38 G’s |
45 G’s |
Hip Force |
425 lbs. |
838 lbs. |
New test not comparable to pre-2011 test results. More stars = Better. Lower test results = Better.
Instrumented handling tests conducted by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and analysis of its dimensions indicate that the Nautilus is 1.4% to 1.9% less likely to roll over than the Passport.
For its top level performance in IIHS driver and passenger-side small overlap frontal, moderate overlap frontal, side impact, roof strength and head restraint tests, its standard vehicle-to-vehicle front crash prevention system, its standard vehicle-to-pedestrian front crash prevention system, and its available headlight’s “Good” rating, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety grants the Nautilus the rating of “Top Pick” for 2021, a rating granted to only 136 vehicles tested by the IIHS. The Passport last would have qualified as a “Top Pick” in 2019.