iSeeCars.com’s study analyzed 30 million car listings to determine which brands had the highest percentage of 5-star safety rated vehicles.
WOBURN, Mass. (March 10, 2014)- Some go for style, others go for size, but if safety is your top priority when shopping for a used car then iSeeCars.com’s latest study will guide you to the brands to consider first.
Surprisingly, Buick is the #1 safest brand with over 26% of its car listings designated a 5-star safety rating by the NHTSA, ahead of Volvo’s 24%. Honda, one of the most popular brands, only has 12% with the highest safety ratings. How is that determined? iSeeCars.com went through 30 million car listings over the past year and calculated all of the 5-star safety ratings within each brand for model years 2001-2014. The percentage was determined by taking the number of listings with 5-star ratings for the brand divided by all listings for the brand (that were rated by the U.S. government agency, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration).
| Rank |
Brand |
% of Safest Vehicles (using NHTSA 5-Star Safety Rating) |
| 1 |
Buick |
26.4% |
| 2 |
Volvo |
24.0% |
| 3 |
Audi |
21.4% |
| 4 |
BMW |
18.6% |
| 5 |
Chevrolet |
16.2% |
| 6 |
Lincoln |
15.2% |
| 7 |
Cadillac |
14.3% |
| 8 |
Kia |
14.2% |
| 9 |
Acura |
14.0% |
| 10 |
Hyundai |
12.7% |
| 11 |
GMC |
12.3% |
| 12 |
Honda |
11.9% |
How can consumers use these numbers? Well, it means that if safety is a car shopper’s top priority, he/she will have a better chance of finding a 5-star safety rated car for sale in a Buick than a Honda – as a matter fact more than twice the likelihood (26% for Buick vs 12% for Honda).
Driving Buick’s 26% were the Regal (67%), Enclave (45%), LaCrosse (33%) and the Encore (30%). For Volvo, the 
models with the highest percentage of 5 star safety ratings included the S80 (93%), XC60 (75%), and S60 (42%). It is important to note, that during the time period studied, there were over 230K Buick cars with NHTSA safety ratings, which means more than 60K Buicks had a 5-star safety rating. By comparison, there were about 66K Volvos during the time period analyzed, while 16K of them had 5-star ratings.
“Another surprising finding is that, while Honda was one of the most popular used car brands in the study overall based on volume, it came in 12th place,” Phong Ly, co-founder and CEO of iSeeCars.com said. “Only 12% of Honda’s total car listings have a 5-star safety rating.”
In breaking down the rankings, 4 out of the top 10 brands are American. The only Japanese brand in the top 10 is Acura with 14% of the cars listed last year rated 5 stars.
Methodology:
iSeeCars.com.com analyzed 30 million car listings posted on the site over the last year and studied those vehicles given safety ratings by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA); the NHTSA started . For each car brand, the number of listings for sale with 5-star ratings was tallied up. The percentage of listings with 5-star ratings was calculated as the number of listings with 5-star ratings divided by all listings for the brand that were rated by the NHTSA. Model years 2001 to 2014 were analyzed.
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