The Mercedes-Benz Citan in van format.

The new Mercedes-Benz Citan van has been given a Euro NCAP rating of just three stars for the MPV model.

Mercedes’ cars, vans and trucks generally have an excellent reputation for safety. Since 2009, every single new Mercedes car model rated by Euro NCAP has gained the maximum five-star rating.

Until now.

Mercedes new Citan van and MPV has been given a three-star safety rating by Euro NCAP, which conduct safety tests on all new car models sold in Europe. Euro NCAP described the results as “middle of the road”, but it’s a rare miss for a company with such high safety standards.

At the root of the problem are probably two factors. Firstly, the new Citan is basically a rebadged Renault Kangoo — it wasn’t designed by Mercedes and can only be adapted to Merc’s standards to a limited extent. Secondly, it’s basically a van, even though the version tested by Euro NCAP was the MPV model.

Vans and light commercial vehicles don’t have a great record in Euro NCAP tests, especially when it comes to pedestrian safety and safety assist systems, the two areas in which the Citan’s scores were weakest.

Here’s an overview of the Citan’s Euro NCAP test results (for full details, click here):

• Adult Occupant: 74%
• Child Occupant: 69%
• Pedestrian: 56%
• Safety Assist: 33%
• Overall: ***

To be fair to Renault and Mercedes, they are not alone in struggling to deliver high safety test scores for this class of vehicle. The current Peugeot Expert, an equivalent model, was also given a three-star rating by Euro NCAP when it was tested in 2012, as was the smaller Citroen Nemo in 2010.

I couldn’t find recent results for any other van-based models — all of the others in Euro NCAP’s database were from 2009 or earlier, when the tests were slightly different and not directly comparable.