The NCAP 5 Star rating for the Yeti expired in January 2016. New Yeti's are therefore not covered by the NCAP rating and buyers should be aware that the current Yeti might  not receive a 5 Star rating if tested now. Requirements have moved forward in the past 7 years and unless Skoda resubmit the Yeti to NCAP for retesting then Skoda cannot claim it has a 5 Star rating.

Surely they don't expect them to pass a standard that didn't exist at the time it was first produced.

All cars are in the same boat in any case.

How many others watched the 'Dispatches' program on Channel 4 last night?

That was about car safety, about airbags and the 'NCAP' star rating.

As said above, seems the rating only lasts so long.

Seems that the worst type of crash was the 25% corner front end type crash.

Some Companies have improved their cars in that area.

If you have not watched it, may be interesting for some. It's only half an hour.

I've always thought that the 40% offset (NOT 50%) was because of the Merc and BMW straight 6s of the day, which would have almost certainly resulted in a fail.

Surely they don't expect them to pass a standard that didn't exist at the time it was first produced.

All cars are in the same boat in any case.

Agreed, but the 5 star rating expired in Jan 2016 so Skoda cannot claim new Yeti's have a 5 star NCAP rating. A VW spokesman agreed that they cannot claim a model has a 5 Star NCAP rating after it has expired - he was referring to the VW Polo but principle is the same. The Channel 4 program is worth a look and has made me think about the wisdom of buying another "old" Yeti when there are newer competitors with current 5 Star NCAP ratings, not necessarily a deal breaker but it does make you think.

It's not as if Skoda start making the Yeti a 1 star NCAP rating car as the rating runs out, if it was good enough for the last 7 years what's changed.
Of course the new cars will be safer due to advances in that field, it's why new models will generally be introduced after about 7 years.

The Yeti is one of the best cars I have had and I still enjoy driving it after nearly 6 years, I was even toying with the idea of buying another one because the replacement doesn't arrive till 2018 and I prefer to wait 12 months after the introduction of a new model before buying one - debugging etc. However, the Yeti is now 8 years old and I think that getting a new one now is probably not the sensible thing to do in terms of modern safety features and technology. It will be almost 10 years old before it is replaced in 2018. So when the time comes for a change in 2017 and I am looking for a petrol auto then it looks like the choice is between Renault, Nissan etc. Seat are not offering a petrol auto Ateca at all.