The Q3’s pre-crash front seatbelts will tighten automatically in the event the vehicle detects an impending crash, improving protection against injury significantly. The Corolla Cross doesn’t offer pre-crash pretensioners.
Both the Q3 and Corolla Cross have child safety locks to prevent children from opening the rear doors. The Q3 has power child safety locks, allowing the driver to activate and deactivate them from the driver's seat and to know when they're engaged. The Corolla Cross’ child locks have to be individually engaged at each rear door with a manual switch. The driver can’t know the status of the locks without opening the doors and checking them.
The Audi Q3 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 Corolla Cross doesn’t offer a front passenger side knee airbag.
To provide maximum traction and stability on all roads, All-Wheel Drive is standard on the Q3. But it costs extra on the Corolla Cross.
The Q3 Premium Plus has a standard Top View Camera System to allow the driver to see objects all around the vehicle on a screen. The Corolla Cross 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.
The Q3 has a standard blind spot warning system that uses sensors to alert the driver to objects in the vehicle’s blind spots where the side view mirrors don’t reveal them. Only the Corolla Cross LE/XLE offers a blind spot warning system.
To help make backing out of a parking space safer, the Q3 has standard Rear Cross-Traffic Assist and Automatic Brake Activation automatically engages the brakes to help avoid a collision. Only the Corolla Cross LE/XLE offers Rear Cross-Traffic Alert.
Both the Q3 and the Corolla Cross have standard driver and passenger frontal airbags, front side-impact airbags, driver knee airbags, side-impact head airbags, front seatbelt pretensioners, height adjustable front shoulder belts, four-wheel antilock brakes, traction control, electronic stability systems to prevent skidding, crash mitigating brakes, post-collision automatic braking systems, daytime running lights, lane departure warning systems and rearview cameras.
The Audi Q3 weighs 577 to 798 pounds more than the Toyota Corolla Cross. The NHTSA advises that heavier vehicles are much safer in collisions than their significantly lighter counterparts.
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 Audi Q3 is safer than the Toyota Corolla Cross:
|
Q3 |
Corolla Cross |
|
Front Seat |
|
STARS |
5 Stars |
5 Stars |
HIC |
88 |
92 |
Chest Movement |
.7 inches |
.9 inches |
Abdominal Force |
95 lbs. |
129 lbs. |
|
Into Pole |
|
STARS |
5 Stars |
5 Stars |
Hip Force |
485 lbs. |
623 lbs. |
New test not comparable to pre-2011 test results. More stars = Better. Lower test results = Better.