For enhanced safety, the front shoulder belts of the Chevrolet Blazer are height-adjustable, and the rear seat shoulder belts have child comfort guides to move the belt to properly fit children. A better fit can prevent injuries and the increased comfort also encourages children to buckle up. The Jeep Wrangler has only front height-adjustable 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 Blazer are reminded to check the back seat if they opened the rear door before starting out. The Wrangler doesn’t offer a back seat reminder.
The Chevrolet Blazer has a standard driver’s side knee airbag mounted low on the dashboard. The knee airbag helps prevent the driver from sliding under the seatbelts or the main frontal airbag; this keeps the driver better positioned during a collision for maximum protection. A knee airbag also helps keep the legs from striking the dashboard, preventing knee and leg injuries in the case of a serious frontal collision. The Wrangler doesn’t offer knee airbags.
The Blazer has standard head airbag curtains for front and rear seats which act as a forgiving barrier between the driver and outboard passenger's upper bodies and the window and pillars. Combined with high-strength steel door beams and lower side airbags this system increases head protection in broadside collisions. The Wrangler doesn't offer side airbag protection for the head and are only available for the front seats.
The Blazer has standard Automatic Emergency Braking, which use forward mounted sensors to warn the driver of a possible collision ahead. If the driver doesn’t react and the system determines a collision is imminent, it automatically applies the brakes at full-force in order to reduce the force of the crash or avoid it altogether. The Wrangler offers an available collision warning system without the automated brake feature that would prevent or reduce the collision if the driver fails to react.
The Blazer’s lane departure warning system alerts a temporarily inattentive driver when the vehicle begins to leave its lane and gently nudges the vehicle back towards its lane. The Wrangler doesn’t offer a lane departure warning system.
The Blazer offers an optional HD Surround Vision to allow the driver to see objects all around the vehicle on a screen. The Wrangler only offers a rear monitor and rear parking sensors that beep or flash a light. That doesn’t help with obstacles to the front or sides.
For better protection of the passenger compartment, the Blazer uses safety cell construction with a three-dimensional high-strength frame that surrounds the passenger compartment. It provides extra impact protection and a sturdy mounting location for door hardware and side impact beams. The Wrangler uses a body-on-frame design, which has no frame members above the floor of the vehicle.
Both the Blazer and the Wrangler have standard driver and passenger frontal airbags, front side-impact airbags, front seatbelt pretensioners, height adjustable front shoulder belts, plastic fuel tanks, four-wheel antilock brakes, traction control, electronic stability systems to prevent skidding, rearview cameras, available all wheel drive, blind spot warning systems and rear cross-path warning.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration does 35 MPH front crash tests on new vehicles. In this test, results indicate that the Chevrolet Blazer is safer than the Jeep Wrangler:
|
Blazer |
Wrangler |
OVERALL STARS |
5 Stars |
4 Stars |
|
Driver |
|
STARS |
5 Stars |
4 Stars |
HIC |
182 |
187 |
Neck Injury Risk |
22% |
31% |
Neck Stress |
178 lbs. |
299 lbs. |
Neck Compression |
25 lbs. |
72 lbs. |
Leg Forces (l/r) |
104/435 lbs. |
926/731 lbs. |
|
Passenger |
|
STARS |
4 Stars |
4 Stars |
Neck Stress |
124 lbs. |
188 lbs. |
Leg Forces (l/r) |
28/2 lbs. |
380/742 lbs. |
New test not comparable to pre-2011 test results. More stars = Better. Lower test results = Better.
A significantly tougher test than their original offset frontal crash test, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety does 40 MPH small overlap frontal offset crash tests. In this test, where only 25% of the total width of the vehicle is struck, results indicate that the Chevrolet Blazer is safer than the Wrangler 4-door:
|
Blazer |
Wrangler |
Overall Evaluation |
GOOD |
MARGINAL |
Restraints |
GOOD |
GOOD |
Head Neck Evaluation |
GOOD |
GOOD |
Head injury index |
90 |
101 |
Peak Head Forces |
0 G’s |
0 G’s |
Steering Column Movement Rearward |
0 cm |
2 cm |
Chest Evaluation |
GOOD |
GOOD |
Max Chest Compression |
19 cm |
23 cm |
Hip & Thigh Evaluation |
GOOD |
GOOD |
Femur Force R/L |
.2/.1 kN |
.5/.1 kN |
Hip & Thigh Injury Risk R/L |
0%/0% |
0%/0% |
Lower Leg Evaluation |
GOOD |
GOOD |
Instrumented handling tests conducted by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and analysis of its dimensions indicate that the Blazer, with its four-star roll-over rating, is 11.2% to 13.2% less likely to roll over than the Wrangler, which received a three-star rating.
For its top level performance in all IIHS frontal, side, rear impact and roof-crush tests, and its standard front crash prevention system, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety grants the Blazer the rating of “Top Safety Pick” for 2017, a rating granted to only 203 vehicles tested by the IIHS. The Wrangler was not even a “Top Safety Pick” for 2016.