OT Court lets Automaker sue Consumer Reports

fails that

Suppose one of their employees bought one of those crappy blue headlight bulbs you are always complaining about and Consumer Reports realized it had no tests for headlight bulbs and started to design one. First step would be to experiment with those crappy blue bulbs and compare them to OEM bulbs. Doesn't sound like junk science to me.

Doesn't sound like a valid analogy to the Suzuki test, to me, on at least three counts. You'll have to do better than this; I'm afraid this analogy is Not Acceptable and gets rated "black dot".

DS

No. I can devise a test of a vehicle carrying a sofa on its roof and label the ones that don't do it without swaying in a high wind "unsafe" if I want. Freedom of speech, freedom of the press.

Did any other tester at the time have similar issues with the vehicle?

Well that explains how the sofas end up on the road...

realized it

And the 3 counts are???

3> Suppose one of their employees bought one of those crappy blue 3> headlight bulbs realized it had no tests for headlight bulbs and 3> started to design one. First step would be to experiment with those 3> crappy blue bulbs and compare them to OEM bulbs. Doesn't sound like 3> junk science to me.

2> Doesn't sound like a valid analogy to the Suzuki test, to me, on at

2> least three counts. You'll have to do better than this; I'm afraid this 2> analogy is Not Acceptable and gets rated "black dot".

1) The scenario you propose is not analogous to the method by which CU devised the test for the Samurai. In your scenario, they compare one product to another and quantify the differences. In the Samurai case, they started with a vehicle they "felt" was unsafe, but that had passed their existing test. They made the test harder and harder to pass until the Samurai failed -- their cheers are recorded on videotape -- then declared that the Samurai had failed the test. 2) The scenario you propose assumes CU comes up with valid and applicable test methods for whatever it is they test, which they demonstrably do not

-- I needn't rehash the many examples of this, they've already been covered in excruciating detail in this and other threads.

3) The crappy blue bulbs in your scenario do not comply with all applicable Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards, while the Suzuki Samurai did in fact comply with all applicable Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards.

DS

Wrose than that. they then printed "UNSAFE" in big letters across the cover of their magazine. It's kind of um - obviously biased. That's half of the case right there.

The Blue bulbs - whole other topic.

That depends on what you mean by "label"

Lloyd your trying to argue out both sides of your mouth. On one hand you are always telling us that CR is an authoratative source that has credibility. Now your trying to argue that CR is just another political organ and whatever they say is opinion. You can't have it both ways.

Ted

Feds just recently started publishing roll over "tests". First were numeric calculations..... clearly less likely to be meaningful then CU's tests. Now with CU's encouragement government will do real stability testing. Maybe they will begin experimenting on the Suzuki to design the test and work backwards from there.

afraid this

case, they

applicable

But showed such alarming tendencies that they felt another test was in order for all high center of gravity vehicles.

Every SUV is subject to the shorter course test now. How many have flunked? Three. Samurai (gone), Trooper (gone), Montero (stability control added; now passes, but still rated "poor" in emergency handling).

No, you've given us your opinion. I doubt that's admissable in court.

Biased? So if, say, a baby crib chokes babies and a magazine calls it unsafe, the magazine is biased? Are you in Bizzaroworld?

A designation of "unsafe" is, at its heart, opinion. And protected by the first amendment.

For good reason. A staffer was driving the vehicle on a snow-covered dirt road leading to their auto test track when the tires grabbed in a rut. When he turned the steering wheel to climb up out of the rut, then went to straighten the wheels, the Suzuki rolled onto its side.

Of course that accident got their attention. Snowy rutted roads aren't that unusual of a condition in much of the country.

In fact, they specifically noted that the Samurai "was actually more maneuverable than the others, since it's so much smaller and lighter".

Not true. The article describes how all four tested vehicles were run through the ordinary tests, and made the above observation about the Suzuki's superior maneuverability.

But then, "With concern about a potential rollover somewhat allayed, (HellT injects: a reasonable concern IMO, due to the previous rollover occurring on the road leading to the test track) a staff member who does not normally drive the course tried to steer the Suzuki around the obstacle. All went well for several runs at moderate speed. Then, on a run at 45 mph, the driver made a slight steering misjudgement: He turned wider than necessary to clear the obstacle, something many ordinary drivers might do in an emergency turn. That forced him to turn back a bit more sharply than our regular testers had. As he turned the steering wheel to the right to get back into lane, the Suzuki teetered to the left. The two right-side tires lifted about a foot off the pavement before the driver was able to bring the vehicle back under control. The Suzuki had come within a hair of rolling over at a moderate speed in a maneuver that shouldn't put daylight under the tires of any car."

So. According to their own account, they didn't make the tests increasingly harder. What they did was place a non-test driver into the Suzuki and have him run the course. At 45 mph, he made a sharper turn than the test drivers had, and the Suzuki teetered.

So, after that incident, they ran *all* the vehicles being tested (the Isuzu Trooper, the Suzuki Samurai, the Jeep Wrangler, the Jeep Cherokee) through a different maneuver. They made the turn tighter, and put outriggers on both the Samurai and the Jeep Wrangler, since they were the two smallest vehicles in the test. The outriggers added about another 300 lbs to the weight of the vehicles. The Isuzu Trooper, the Jeep Wrangler, and the Jeep Cherokee remained stable. Next they removed the outriggers from the Wrangler and ran it through the maneuver again. It remained stable. The Samurai, by comparison, lifted onto its outriggers at a speed of 40 mph.

Again, not true. Are you guys engaged in the same kind of slander campaign against CU that you allege CU is against Suzuki? Or are you simply untroubled by facts? I've got the issue in my hands, and across the top of the cover (in 1/4 inch high type) they ran 'The dangerous Suzuki Samurai' with a photo of it tipped on its side.

And I don't see how that's biased, since the article goes details how they discovered the Suzuki's potential to tip and how they then managed to get it to tip on the course. Plus they recounted the Center for Auto Safety's and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's reports of Samurai rollover accidents. It's not like they had no reason to focus on this vehicle's propensity to roll; they'd seen it happen with their own Samurai, and they had accident data supporting it.

HellT

aren't

lighter".

rollover

moderate

vehicle

Cherokee)

removed

That's

across

managed

I for one appreciate you taking the time to dig out the issue. Pretty much the way I remember it. Shows I still have some memory left at age 50.

Did the magazine force the baby's head through the bars first?

But that's NOT a accident-avoidance maneuver, that's not knowing how to drive onto uneven pavement/how to deal with 4wd. I've seen Wranglers do the exact same thing. Shoot, I've seen people roll/spin their cars when their tires hit a rut or gravel on the side of the road.

No, she really blew it when the thing hit uneven pavement. Not an obstacle - they make it sound like a tree or rock or dead deer.

Ie - let's repeat their words - he made a mistake. And, like most high-CG vehicles, it bit him - though only a little bit.

SUV. Not the same as a Civic. See that extra 6 inches of daylight under the car?

That was the original test. It didn't make the news as there was no rollover.

Well, duh. 300 lbs changed its CG. Note that it did at 40mph what perviously didn'at 45mph, as the outriggers were more than a foot off the ground.

Neither are incompetent winter weather drivers such as this CU staffer apparently was.

Motorcycles also tip over when they stop moving. It is simply the nature of the beast, just as the fact that vehicles with high ground clearance will tip over easier than a Corvette.

Matt

Making a lane change shouldn't lead to tipping onto 2 wheels. Period.

Irrelevant. SUVs are advertised as equivalent to cars and are so used. Any vehicle designed for on-road use shouldn't tip over during a lane change.

It tipped onto 2 wheels.

Yes, lowered it.

Reading not your forte? The Samurai teetered at 45 mph during an inadvertent lane change. In the following controlled test, it did so at 40 mph.