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 Hyundai Santa Fe doesn’t offer pretensioners for its rear 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 Santa Fe 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 Santa Fe.
Both the Eclipse Cross and the Santa Fe have standard driver and passenger frontal airbags, front side-impact airbags, side-impact head airbags, height adjustable front shoulder belts, four-wheel antilock brakes, traction control, electronic stability systems to prevent skidding, crash mitigating brakes, daytime running lights, 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 Hyundai Santa Fe:
|
Eclipse Cross |
Santa Fe |
|
Front Seat |
|
STARS |
5 Stars |
5 Stars |
Chest Movement |
.5 inches |
1.1 inches |
Abdominal Force |
154 lbs. |
164 lbs. |
Hip Force |
292 lbs. |
415 lbs. |
|
Rear Seat |
|
STARS |
5 Stars |
5 Stars |
Hip Force |
464 lbs. |
736 lbs. |
|
Into Pole |
|
STARS |
5 Stars |
5 Stars |
Max Damage Depth |
14 inches |
14 inches |
HIC |
358 |
376 |
New test not comparable to pre-2011 test results. More stars = Better. Lower test results = Better.