For enhanced safety, the front and rear seat shoulder belts of the Mitsubishi Eclipse Cross 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 Chevrolet Equinox doesn’t offer pretensioners for its rear seat belts.
For enhanced safety, the front seat shoulder belts of the Mitsubishi Eclipse Cross 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 Chevrolet Equinox doesn’t offer height-adjustable seat belts.
The Mitsubishi Eclipse Cross 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 Equinox doesn’t offer knee airbags.
To provide maximum traction and stability on all roads, Full-Time Four-Wheel Drive is standard on the Eclipse Cross. But it costs extra on the Equinox.
Both the Eclipse Cross and the Equinox have standard driver and passenger frontal airbags, front side-impact airbags, side-impact head airbags, four-wheel antilock brakes, traction control, electronic stability systems to prevent skidding, crash mitigating brakes, lane departure warning systems, rearview cameras, available blind spot warning systems, around view monitors and rear cross-path warning.
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 Mitsubishi Eclipse Cross is safer than the Chevrolet Equinox:
|
Eclipse Cross |
Equinox |
|
Front Seat |
|
STARS |
5 Stars |
5 Stars |
Chest Movement |
.5 inches |
1.1 inches |
Abdominal Force |
154 lbs. |
195 lbs. |
Hip Force |
292 lbs. |
357 lbs. |
|
Rear Seat |
|
STARS |
5 Stars |
5 Stars |
HIC |
162 |
288 |
Hip Force |
464 lbs. |
630 lbs. |
|
Into Pole |
|
STARS |
5 Stars |
5 Stars |
HIC |
358 |
377 |
Hip Force |
622 lbs. |
730 lbs. |
New test not comparable to pre-2011 test results. More stars = Better. Lower test results = Better.