2018 Mazda6 Earns Top Safety Pick Honors From IIHS

The newly refreshed Mazda6 is a Top Safety pick from IIHS.

The 2018 Mazda Mazda6 won our hearts in a recent week of testing. Now it's winning our minds as well. In a new round of testing the Mazda6 scored Good on every crash test, including the important passenger side small frontal overlap test. The Mazda6 also earns a Good score for child seat ease of use. On the active safety test, the Mazda6 earned a rating of superior. The culmination of this testing earned the Mazda6 the Insurance Insitute of Highway Safety's Top Safety Pick award.

The 2018 Mazda6 sedan came very close to matching the Mazda CX-5's highest possible IIHS rating called Top Safety Pick Plus. To earn the Plus a vehicle must also have available Good rated headlights. Oddly, the Mazda6's optional active bending LED headlights only earned a score of Acceptable. Less expensive trims earned a score of Marginal for the headlights.

We call the results odd because, in our experience, the Mazda6 has outstanding headlights. Not only are they LED, but also curve-adaptive and have automatic high beams that work very well. Not all version in all cars do. This is pretty much the hot setup on today's best vehicles and in the CX-5, Mazda's headlights do earn the Good rating. Glare was not a problem, but IIHS noted that when only using the low beams, "On the straightaway, visibility was fair on the right side of the road and inadequate on the left side. On curves, visibility was good on both right curves and inadequate on both left curves."

Acceptable is not a bad headlight rating. The dramatically more expensive Mercedes C-Class sedan earns a Poor rating on the IIHS headlight test.

Mazda6 Fast Facts:
The Mazda6 sedan is an IIHS Top Safety Pick. With its new 2.5-liter turbocharged engine, the Mazda6 is earning rave reviews.

View the comprehensive safety test report for the 2018 Mazda Mazda6 at the IIHS.ORG website.