Car Rating Lifecycle

Information on this website is based on two separate safety ratings - the Australasian New Car Assessment Program (ANCAP) ratings and the Used Car Safety Ratings (UCSR).

ANCAP:

• crash tests brand new vehicles in a laboratory under specific conditions.

USCR - Analyses real-world car crashes.

• Ratings are updated annually
• It can take several years for enough crash data to become available for a UCSR to be calculated.

On this website, cars that have an ANCAP rating will only be replaced with a UCSR if the vehicle is no longer available to be bought as new, or the ANCAP rating expires.

The used car crash research and new car assessment program serve as a guide to the crash protection offered by different cars. They tell you how well your car will protect you in a crash and let you compare research and review car safety ratings when buying a new or used car.

While the ANCAP and UCSR systems are not comparable, whichever rating you use, the more safety stars, the better.

The diagram below shows the differences between the rating systems and the safety rating pathway cars move through in their lifecycle.

*ANCAP also rates cars based on crash test data from EuroNCAP tested vehicles that are relevant to Australasia. EuroNCAP chooses the best selling cars in Europe to be tested.