Japanese New Car Safety Assessment Program (J-NCAP) has given the new Swift a safety rating of 5 stars. This rating is valid only for the JMD model or Japanese Domestic Model and is not applicable to the one produced by Maruti Suzuki for Indian markets.
The JMD spec Suzuki Swift scored 87.8 points in occupant protection and 78.87 points where pedestrian protection is concerned. 4.0 point were also allotted for passenger seat belt reminder bringing total points to 178.3 putting the Swift in a 5 Star rating.
The Japanese spec Swift sports a total of 6 airbags, ABS, EBD, ESP and dual sensor brake support along with collision mitigation system which are all offered as standard across all variants. Besides these safety features, the JMD spec Swift is also seen with hill hold assist, lane departure warning, weaving alert, adaptive cruise control and high beam assist.
It gets disc brakes on all wheels. As against this long list of safety features, the model on sale in India only receives ABS, disc brakes on front wheels, 2 airbags and parking sensor with reverse parking camera, with some of these only on the top end variants. Watch the crash test video below, and see how strong the Japanese spec Swift is. The cabin is intact.
JMD spec Suzuki Swift is powered by petrol or petrol hybrid engine, as against the model sold in India which is powered by either petrol or diesel engine. The India spec model gets its power via a 1.2 liter K Series petrol engine offering 82 bhp power and 113 Nm torque and a 1.3 liter turbocharged diesel engine offering 74 bhp power and 190 Nm torque mated to 5 speed manual and automatic manual gearbox. It is priced from INR 5 lakhs and clocks sales to the extent of 20,000 units per month.
India-spec Swift has not been crash tested by any of the NCAP yet. But, Maruti claims that the car is good enough for Bharat NCAP which comes into effect from 2019.
