2019 Volkswagen Arteon earns top crash safety ratings despite poor headlights

The 2019 Volkswagen Arteon just missed a Top Safety Pick award due to headlights with either deficient visibility or excessive glare. 

But when it comes to crashworthiness, the full-size sedan earned the praise of the IIHS, which conducts the most rigorous crash-safety testing of any non-profit testing agency. In the six key tests, including the challenging front small overlap test, the Arteon earned a top rating of “Good.”

Introduced for model year 2019, the luxury-leaning successor to the Volkswagen CC also had a superior rating for automatic emergency braking, which helped the sedan avoid collisions for both 12- and 25-mph tests. 

The Arteon came up short from the coveted Top Safety Pick award because of all three headlight options. The LED projector headlights offered on the SE, SEL, and SEL Premium trim ranked “Poor” for different reasons. On the SE trim, the lights didn’t project far enough forward or well enough on the right; on SEL and SEL Premium, the low beams were penalized for excessive glare. 

If that sounds nit-picky, that’s kind of the point of IIHS testing, especially when it comes to headlights. IIHS reports that about half of all fatal crashes in the U.S. occur in the dark.

The Arteon has not yet been rated by the NHTSA. 

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