For enhanced safety, the front seat shoulder belts of the Hyundai Elantra N are height-adjustable to accommodate a wide variety of driver and passenger heights. A better fit can prevent injuries and the increased comfort also encourages passengers to buckle up. The MINI Cooper Hardtop 2 Door doesn’t offer 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 Elantra N are reminded to check the back seat if they opened the rear door before starting out. The Cooper Hardtop 2 Door doesn’t offer a back seat reminder.
The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety tests front crash prevention systems. With a score of 6 points, IIHS rates the Forward Collision-Avoidance Assist in the Elantra N as “Superior.” The Cooper Hardtop 2 Door scores only 4 points and is rated only “Advanced.”
Over 200 people are killed each year when backed over by motor vehicles. The Elantra N Auto has standard Reverse Parking Collision Avoidance Assist that uses rear sensors to monitor and automatically apply the brakes to prevent a rear collision. The Cooper Hardtop 2 Door doesn’t offer backup collision prevention brakes.
The Elantra N’s blind spot warning system uses sensors to alert the driver to objects in the vehicle’s blind spots where the side view mirrors don’t reveal them and moves the vehicle back into its lane. The Cooper Hardtop 2 Door doesn’t offer a system to reveal objects in the driver’s blind spots.
To help make backing out of a parking space safer, the Elantra N’s standard rear cross-path warning system uses sensors in the rear bumper to alert the driver to vehicles approaching from the side, helping the driver avoid collisions. The Cooper Hardtop 2 Door doesn’t offer a cross-path warning system.
Both the Elantra N and the Cooper Hardtop 2 Door have standard driver and passenger frontal airbags, front side-impact airbags, side-impact head airbags, front seatbelt pretensioners, front wheel drive, 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 driver alert monitors.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration does 35 MPH front crash tests on new vehicles. In this test, results indicate that the Hyundai Elantra N is safer than the MINI Cooper Hardtop 2 Door:
|
Elantra N |
Cooper Hardtop 2 Door |
|
Driver |
|
STARS |
5 Stars |
4 Stars |
HIC |
142 |
183 |
Neck Injury Risk |
21% |
36% |
Neck Stress |
268 lbs. |
318 lbs. |
Neck Compression |
51 lbs. |
60 lbs. |
Leg Forces (l/r) |
66/48 lbs. |
261/454 lbs. |
New test not comparable to pre-2011 test results. More stars = Better. Lower test results = Better.
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 Elantra N the rating of “Top Safety Pick” for 2022, a rating granted to only 141 vehicles tested by the IIHS. The Cooper Hardtop 2 Door has not been fully tested, yet.