Thule Atlantis / Power-Grip mounting system: city crash tests successfully passed ten times
The ADAC (Europe´s largest auto club) has recently tested various roof boxes, among them the Thule Atlantis 780 and the Thule Ocean 500.
In the crash test (30km/h, loading according to manufactures instruction) in particular the Thule boxes received a negative rating, mainly because according to the ADAC the Atlantis box came off the roof. Thule carries out stringent tests on it's roof boxes before market launch. This also involves crash tests at 30km/h and with 10g forces, parameters which are significantly tougher than the ones stated in the proposed standard ISO 11154 (16-18km/h, 8g forces). These tests were carried out and the tested products certified by the independent organization TÜV Product Service GmbH, TÜV Süd Group München. In particular the boxes with the Power-Grip mounting system have already been subjected ten times to city crash tests, without any external damage to the grip claws and without any box coming off the roof. As a reaction to the information of the ADAC´s test result a further product test was carried out at TÜV Süd on November 15, 2006, this time with an overload of about 25%, to simulate even higher stresses.
The products tested were the Thule Atlantis 780 with Power-Grip mounting system, 95kg loading instead of normally 75kg and the Thule Ocean 500 with Easy-Snap mounting system, 65kg loading instead of normally 50kg. Both boxes passed this extreme test, a result also confirmed in the report by TÜV Süd. Thule cannot follow that a roof box with a Power-Grip or Easy-Snap mounting system, correctly fitted according to the mounting instructions, can fail a crash test carried out in line with DIN 75302 and ISO 11154. This is also confirmed by the independent test reports from TÜV Süd. To date over 60,000 Thule Atlantis roof boxes have been sold, and no problems of this kind have so far occurred with the mounting system or the box itself.
We assure our customers the safety of Thule roof boxes.