Are we all Moose Test experts by now? Presumably so. TTAC has covered Moosegate from the perspective of a skeptical American and an indignant German so far, and now there’s more (moose) fat to chew.
Yesterday, I sent this email to Rabe Mattias at Teknikens Varld:
Thank you for contacting us to provide the full details on your test.
Can you offer an opinion or theory as to why the Grand Cherokee
repeatedly displayed the wheels-up behavior during your testing but
did not display the same behavior during Chrysler’s observations?
Thank you!
We didn’t get a response. Here’s what we did get:
In a new video, the magazine claims that Jeep’s load standard for the Grand Cherokee isn’t reasonable — that “with a driver and four adult passengers, there is hardly any room for luggage.” North American SUV-market observers shouldn’t be surprised by this: one of the things that came out of the infamous Ford Explorer Firestone debacle was the fact that the Explorer didn’t actually have enough payload rating to carry five American adults at all. (The 1995 Explorer’s payload, 980 pounds, was better than that of the Infiniti QX4, which was an unintentionally hilarious 795 pounds!) American buyers don’t put five adults in an SUV. The common load is one 120-pound trophy wife, a hundred pounds of completely unnecessary toddler-related crap, and a small child who, in both dimensions and weight, is roughly equivalent to a Thanksgiving turkey. In a pinch, Dad may come along, assuming the weather prohibits an afternoon round of golf.
Once the Grand Cherokee was loaded to Chrysler’s suggested spec, which depending on whom you believe is either the correct spec or an unbelievably crooked attempt to game the test, the Grand Cherokee didn’t go for the two-wheel hokey-pokey. Instead, it repeatedly blew its left front tire — a total of seven times, according to Teknikens Varld. The video shows the left-front tire blowing again and again.
Strictly speaking, a blown front tire shouldn’t constitute a failure of the “moose test”. In practice, most SUV owners would be deeply annoyed if they had to replace the front tire every time they put the car through an avoidance maneuver.
Who’s to blame here? Is the test rigged? Is the Cherokee unsafe? Are the Euro-market tires to blame? Are they different from the tires specified on US-market Grand Cherokees? Having run the GC SRT-8 around “Big Willow” quickly enough to lap a bunch of Chally-SRT-driving journosaurs, I’m pretty convinced that the SRT version would absolutely breeze the moose test… but what about the base Laredo?
In a perfect world, TTAC would be able to purchase a GC off the showroom floor and go through the test ourselves. Since we don’t have an extra $40K sitting around, we can at least offer to do the driving and take the rollover risk if someone else wants to buy the vehicle. Any takers?
highdesertcat, would you care to volunteer?
Low center of gravity good, high center of gravity bad…
Once again I become nostolgic for the American station wagon.
Dan, I would not, but thanks for thinking of me.
As I wrote in another thread, each of the different variants of the GC displays different driving and handling characteristics.
My wife’s Overland Summit tends to sway a lot because of that air suspension and the 18″ wheels with Goodyears on them. It makes for a smooth and supple ride, but I wouldn’t want to run any slalom courses with it. I’d get seasick on dry land.
Those Goodyears have soft sidewalls unlike the Yokohamas that came on our Japan-built 2008 Highlander. So I wonder if the tires themselves also play a part in these wheel-lifting adventures.
And blown left-front tires? Seven times? What brand tires do they come with in Europe and what is the lateral weight-shift factor that causes that one corner to blow all the time?
Did TV try the avoidance test in the opposite direction? Maybe it would consistently blow the right front tire if the weight-shift coefficient is greater than the lateral-stress ratings of the tires.
Then again, my thinking is that you can roll any vehicle if you twist the steering wheel hard enough at speed. The laws of physics are constant and if the grip of your tires on the road exceed the sliding threshold of the rubber compound of your tires, the opposite side of your vehicle is going to overtake the side that has stopped sliding or rolling.
No matter, this is bad press for Fiatsler, and I’m with Bertel on this one when he wrote that Fiatsler should not argue with TV since the tests are well documented. They should STFU and fix it so it can pass muster for a future Moose test.
My wife likes to cruise on US70 East/West through the WSMR desert at about 85mph (cruise control limit). We have a number of cayote, deer, Oryx, horses and cattle that have been known to wander onto the Hwy. Were a real-life Moose test to happen here, I would hope she would hit it head on.
A few years back, a guy in an F150 hit a black 1500lb bull head-on at 75mph on Hwy54 at daybreak and lived to tell about it. Totaled the truck. Killed the bull. Prime Roadkill.
You should not be able roll a vehicles by simply twisting the steering wheel at speed. Assuming you’re on level, dry pavement, you should get only understeer, oversteer, or a spin. A nonlevel surface or some kind of obstacle should be necessary to induce a roll.
Stay away from the Suburban then. My daughter was in one that got rolled, on a dry, level highway. SUVs aren’t built for evasive maneuvers, but that doesn’t stop people from driving them at crazy speeds….until it stops them from driving them at all.
HDC: Your speed control is limited to 85 MPH? Are you serious?
It has been pointed out elsewhere that one factor which people seem to overlook is that the tires aren’t just soft, but apparently have very good traction. The rationale behind this is probably a compromise between ride comfort and braking ability, as buyers these days expect 5,000lb SUVs to be able to stop in a distance comparable to that of their 3,800lb, midsize-based CUV counterparts.
This is the same combination that keeps a lot of cars out of SCCA solo competition, as the mix of an under-sprung stock suspension and the grip levels of r-compound tires can result in an abnormally high frequency of roll-overs.
DaveDFW, one of my sons was a State Cop (Instructor) and he has recited many examples of Crown Vics rolling at speed, also Tahoes and even a Probe or two.
He used to teach pursuit driving techniques as part of the curriculum at the Academy of his state as his end assignment prior to his retirement.
Once the Troopers-in-training completed his ‘ground school’ course he turned them over to the skid pad instructors, where they got the practical application of the laws of physics in real-life pursuit vehicles. He’s retired now and working for the US government as a Range Safety Officer for the Air Force.
A vehicle becomes unstable when you try to abruptly change the direction the mass is headed in. The six degrees of freedom experienced when flying an airplane can apply to cars as well whenever you exceed the yaw rate, even if the pitch rate remains constant. The result is usually an exaggerated roll rate, like flipping over.
The only things that keep a vehicle on the road from rolling or tipping over is the suspension and tires, when you exceed the yaw rate.
Obviously, TV exceeded the yaw rate of the Euro-spec Grand Cherokees during the Moose test and the tires and/or suspension were overpowered by the stresses of all that shifting weight.
The mass became unstable and went airborne (a little bit) by lifting wheels of the pavement. The result was a blown tire when the pressure at that corner exceeded the ratings.
In the case of the old Explorer it was excessive body roll and resultant tip over. Yeah, blown tires had a lot to do with the resultant deaths and injuries with the rolled Explorers, but the suspension obviously was also lacking when it failed to keep the vehicle from rolling over. Ford changed that to a much better independently-sprung system on the new Explorers.
Look, this is bad for Fiat. The Grand Cherokee is one of their top money makers and best sellers. My recommendation would be to put better tires on the European models, stiffen the suspension using firmer gas struts all around and retune/rewrite the anti-skid/traction control software to kick in a whole lot sooner, and faster.
For those who own WK Cherokees, try turning off the antiskid and traction control and see how scary it gets.
I’ve done it on our Overland, and you can really feel the heft of that vehicle when the system is turned off and you try to flop it around like a fish on dry land.
Once turned on, it makes you feel like an invincible driver as it works quietly behind the scenes, completely unnoticed and transparent.
golden2husky, yep I’m serious! Ditto with my Tundra and Highlander. The fastest I can set the cruise-control for is 85mph. Speed limit on US54 and US70 is 75mph, but traffic routinely cruises at 10-over, even the big rigs.
If you want to go faster, with or without the cruise control on, just depress the go pedal. Many people do.
But there is always the unanticipated, like big chunks of shredded rubber-tread from tires coming apart on the big rigs.
If you try evasive maneuvers to avoid hitting those at speed, you may find that your car will fail the dead-tread in the road test. It can be as bad as the Moose or livestock on the road.
A guy in an older Tacoma hit one of those large tire tread casings from a retread at 85+mph. It tore his driver’s-side front wheel off (tire, wheel and swing arm), which went on its merry way into the desert.
I happened on the scene about 10 minutes after it happened. He was OK. His three-wheel Tacoma looked weird. I gave him a ride into town.
What are the odds that when Chrysler Engineers show up and watch 11 tests done on 3 vehicles by the magazine not one of the tests reproduced the wheel lift. Now, we here of 7 tires in a row popping. Which makes one ask, why no tires popped during any of the 11 tests when Chrysler engineers were on site? Again, what are the odds?
For information from a real news source, read below.
http://www.allpar.com/news/index.php/2012/07/moose-test-faked
http://blog.chryslerllc.com/blog.do?p=entry&id=1833
A bit late to the game and with a loosing strategy.
Am I the only one on planet earth on this? How it is that when Chrysler Engineers arrived to witness the magazine tests, for a total of 11 runs, not one resulted in the wheel lift as originally reported in the Moose Test. Only after Chrysler Engineers leave, does the magazine reports not less than 7 tires popping in a row in other testing. How it is that no tires popped during the initial Moose Test or when Chrysler Engineers were on site witnessing 11 test runs? Maybe someone should tell the Europeans don’t install tires using a box cutter.
http://www.teknikensvarld.se/jeepmoosetest-part4/
Chrysler engineers were there when the 7 tires blew on three different Grand Cherokees in 11 runs. Chrysler neglected to mention the tires blowing out in their disinformation release. Nice company.
A blown tire through this test, you don’t say?
Don’t shortchange the importance of the Moose test. Moose can be very dangerous animals. A Møøse once bit my sister …
No realli! She was Karving her initials on the møøse
with the sharpened end of an interspace tøøthbrush given
her by Svenge – her brother-in-law – an Oslo dentist and
star of many Norwegian møvies: “The Høt Hands of an Oslo
Dentist”, “Fillings of Passion”, “The Huge Mølars of Horst
Nordfink”.
+1 Help! I can’t stop laughing
Post of the month!
We can’t let you face the peril, it is too perilous.
You don’t frighten us, English pig dogs. Go and boil your bottoms, you sons of a silly person. I blow my nose at you, so-called “Arthur King,” you and all your silly English K-nig-hts.
Your mother was a hamster and your father reeks of elderberries; Chrysler PR flacks are saying.
OMG… +1 Post of the month, laughed so hard that had to pretend a Hiccup at the office.
Ni!
Those responsible for the comments have been sacked.
Oh, wicked, bad, naughty, evil Zoot! Oh, she is a naughty person, and she must pay the penalty — and here in Castle Anthrax, we have but one punishment for setting alight the grail-shaped beacon. You must tie her down on a bed and spank her!
Could they try that on the SUV (Landrover?) that touts cramming seven adults and all their camping gear in it? The commercial, which I have seen a billion times (muted) and annoys the hell out of me enough that I can’t even remember the brand, seems to imply it works wondrously. I have my doubts.
So did every other SUV on their market pass this test?
All the ones they tested did.
If that’s the case maybe and SUV in their part of the world is a bad idea in general. They could try shooting some of the moose up there, works in our land.
What kind of argument is that? Every other SUV they’ve tested since the A-class has passed the test. It is a bad idea to buy a Grand Cherokee in that and every other part of the world where the unexpected can occur. That’s all this test shows.
Not all SUVs are created equal. In the US at least there are two kinds of SUV… the SUV that’s built to basically be a pickup-truck with an enclosed cargo area, and the SUV that’s built basically to be a Station-Wagon on Stilts.
Both have very different handling characteristics… on and off-road.
Edit: Unfortunately the Jeep Grand Cherokee appears to be built to be the former, to pay homage to the Jeep Brand’s off-road legacy.. yet to make monies for the parent company it is marketed as the latter.
The Volkswagen Touareg and Volvo XC90 performed well, and the video linked to in the article shows the tests of those. Since this is a European publication, I doubt if they would have tested any vehicles not available in the European market.
No, or rather not every SUV has been tested, the ones that have been tested (according to a list on the site)in the SUV/CUV/Pickup segment:
Brand Model Engine Trim – year, speed km/h
Audi Q5 2,0 TDI -09, 73
BMW X3 xDrive20d -09, 73
Honda CR-V 2,2 i-CDTi Elegance -07, 71
Volvo XC60 2,4D AWD -09, 71
BMW X3 3,0iA -04, 70
Hyundai Santa Fé 2,2 CRDi Comfort -07, 70
BMW X5 3,0 -01, 69
Lexus RX 300 -04, 69
Lexus RX 400h -06, 69
Porsche Cayenne GTS -08, 69
Volvo XC90 3,2 -06, 69
Lexus RX 300 -06, 67
Porsche Cayenne V6 -08, 67
Renault Koleos 2,0 dCi 175 hk -09, 67
Volkswagen Tiguan 2,0 TDI 170 -09, 67
Jeep Patriot 2,0 CRD Limited -07, 65
Peugeot 4007 2,2 HDi -08, 64
Nissan X-Trail 2,0 dCi SE -07, 63
Land Rover Freelander 1,8 -03, 62
Subaru Forester 2,0X -08, 62
Nissan Navara 2,5 dCi LE 171 hk-07, 61
Lexus RX 300 -01, 60
Mitsubishi L200 Ralliart -07, 57
Toyota Hilux 2,5 D-4D D-Cab SR H.G. -07, 57
Chevrolet Trailblazer LTZ -01, 56
Isuzu D-Max 3,0 D Crew Cab -07 55
Range Rover V8 -02, 55
Ford Ranger Double Cab XLT Limited -07, 54
Mazda BT-50 Double Cab Exclusive -07, 54
Source (våt bana=wet track) http://www.teknikensvarld.se/2011/06/12/14314/algtestet–resultat-bil-for-bil/
You are driving a rig that you say is dangerous.
You do it multiple times and the driver doesn’t where a helmet and the passenger is wearing a bike helmet? WTF?
Maybe the 1st time, no helmet because this kind of thing doesn’t happen to you, but over and over? If I was tempting fate, I wouldn’t want a face full of airbag.
I was surprised about the helmet thing too, I would have expected this would be mandatory wear ever since they crumpled the A-class’ A-pillar all those years ago…
Couldn’t fit the horned helmet through the door?
On a serous note, probably because the added weight of a helmet puts a lot of strain on the neck.
Agreed, if I was repeatedly doing that type of testing I would want adequate safety measures in place to in the event that the vehicle rolled over.
If you roll over in a street car on flat surface a helmet isn’t doing much good at all.
I would question how many Yeep drivers are capable of making both those tight turns in short order; maybe the first. How sound is this test?
Good question…
On how many roads is traffic constant enough that a rapid lane-reentry would be necessary but still light enough that moose would frequently linger on the road?
To be fair, per Chrysler’s claim, it did not roll over, but that does not give them a pass on consistently popping the outer front tire upon lane re-entry.
The ball’s in your court, Chrysler; show us what you’ve got.
I JUST BOUGHT a new Grand Cherokee Laredo X! See Sajeev’s “Um, Like, No!” Piston Slap update today…that’s me. No, you may not moose test it. My 120 pound “trophy” wife and smelly dogs would not appreciate the maneuvers involved.
You may, however, come to Minnesota and drive the truck all you want. Testing it’s dynamic limits while loaded only with the driver, a cell phone, and maybe a laptop bag seems like a much more accurate real world evaluation anyway. I haven’t seen any moose yet, but I did have to steer around a guy in an Altima this morning in the parking garage at my office.
As an added bonus, I’ll take you up to my farm and show you why I need a vehicle with 4×4 low range. If you choose that option be sure to bring your guns along!
THANK YOU for this comment.
I still don’t understand the need for 4W-low on even a farm, unless maybe you’re driving across your crops…and need the torque to avoid getting stuck in a car-sized rut, but that doesn’t seem like a good idea. Hey man, all I know about is using 4WD for work (t-line design), ranch use (come out to West Yellowstone, the in-laws have a ranch we can go hunting on), and some major climbs on very loose surfaces. Even then, 4WD-low is hardly ever needed, even pulling the snowmobiles in deep snow, as you just tend to dig yourself in.
We use the description “farm” in the loosest sense of the word possible. In fact it’s about 600 acres of rolling tallgrass prairie, marshy sloughs, and native hardwood forest. There are two plots of around 60 acres each that were tilled and farmed at one point, but that was more than 60 years ago before our family bought it.
At this point we manage it as a natural habitat for deer, upland birds, and whatever else decides to make a home there. It’s criss-crossed with a combination of deeply-rutted, rocky, and occasionally very muddy jeep and four-wheeler trails. I don’t need low range all the time up there, but I believe in having a safety margin, and the one time a year I need low range to get me out of a jam is well worth the extra shopping needed to get it.
Gotcha, then I apologize for second guessing. I guess it’s a bit out west in terms of the what defines a “farm” and how land is divided up (along with our abundance of public lands for hunting and grazing).
Your neck of the woods actually sounds alot like where I lived much of my life, outside of Houston in the pineywoods. Basically a nature preserve along the San Jacinto river.
Sounds a bit like my grandpa’s land.. most of it you don’t need 4-lo.. or even 4wd at all.. but there are some spots in the lowlands where water collects (especially from two natural springs) where having a low-range 4wd-system can mean the difference between getting yourself dirty and getting yourself dirty and having to call in a tow… from a Massey-Furgeson.
Then you just need to sell the jeep and find a way to import a Touareg with the diesel six, low range and torsen diffs (an Option available in Europe). Then you’ll have a decent offroader that’s safer to crash with and better at avoiding mooses, also rugged, durable and economical. Oh wait the last three, not so much and getting the thing into the country will be a bitch.
Enjoy your Jeep in it’s natural habitat, so few SUVs get the chance to grace on anything but tarmac.
Is there some reason to avoid just going straight?
Here in the midwest USA the police generally just let you take the “tenderized” deer with you after the crash. It just so happens that peak deer crash season does not overlap with hunting season, so I wouldn’t be surprised if some people drive up and down country roads at dusk in the hope of scoring a direct hit. Pickup trucks and SUVs are supposed to have dents in them, right?
Moose is much taller than a deer, and will crush the cabin instead of the bumper.
Imagine hitting a horse broadside…
google for video of moose test…the version where they don’t swerve…it isn’t pretty.
Even better, you can get the master’s thesis of the person who came up with the test in which you don’t swerve. In it:
“One study shows that the average speed in fatal accidents is
90-100 km/h and for accidents causing injuries 70-80 km/h.”
Standing on the brakes as soon as you think you might hit something is by far the best approach. You can scrub 5 mph pretty quickly and it can make the difference between life and death. What is the fatality rate for hitting a tree sideways at 70-80 km/h?
Chicago Dude, have you ever seen a moose? They’re the size of a huge horse with longer legs.
The problem with moose collisions is that the front of the car clips the legs out from under it and the rest of the animal comes crashing in through your windshield and roof. When you’re goind down the road at 50-60mph, five miles here or there won’t make a bit of difference, you have to try to avoid the hit.
The trees almost always survive, saplings bend flexibly out of the way, but the ones with a few inches of diameter on them kill and only sacrifice a little bark doing it.
Or find some pictures of somebody who has hit a moose causing the moose to land on the hood with it’s legs stuck in the passengers compartment. It’s probably one of the top three worst ways to die in a car, if you are unlucky your conscious when the moose starts kicking for king and country, bludgeoning the front seat passenger and driver to death in a way that makes a’clock work orange seem a bit on the tame side. If you cant swerve to avoid the damn thing you’ll better aim for the hind legs, when the damn thin is laying there on the road call the cops, shoot it and do not go near it until it’s dead as a rock.
It’s obvious you need to leave the Chicago city and/or burbs and see a moose close up. We’d get them on our street (a golf course neighborhood) all the time in Utah. We get them around my company’s HQ in Sun Valley, Idaho, folks stay indoors. They’re as similar to a deer as your pussycat is to a Siberian Tiger.
Moose really are a deadly animal if you hit one. When I lived in Park City, once or twice a year (usually winter) people would hit a moose and die on impact. They tend to jump out into a road like a deer, but unlike a deer they are rather large.
I think I’d rather take my chances with rolling a vehicle than hitting a moose, especially considering the way vehicles are built to withstand rollovers now. Yeah, you’ll get cuts and bruises and a totalled vehicle…but that’s why we have insurance.
I think you have a far greater survival rate if you stand on the brakes and stay on the road. Rolling a vehicle on flat land is one thing. Rolling a vehicle in a location with large trees and maybe even large rocks is quite another. If an animal suddenly jumps into the road, you’re probably not in wide-open flat land.
The entire moose avoidance test seems to be only marginally useful. On the typical country road where these impacts happen, you don’t really have any pavement to perform the avoidance maneuver. Swerve to the left and you are in danger of hitting oncoming traffic. Swerve to the right and you are in danger of hitting a tree or falling off a cliff. You really do need to reduce speed as much as possible, take the hit and hope for the best.
Have to disagree. A good sized white tail is what… 200lbs? An AVERAGE moose is over 1,000 lbs. Add in that its much taller and will be coming in your window in anything but a semi. You are toast if you hit one.
Exactly. Hit a moose head-on, and you will knock off its relatively spindly legs. The rest of that 1500-lb carcass will then slide over the hood and through the windshield into your lap.
Do you think YOUR car’s A-pillars are engineered to take an impact that large?
I think Chicagodude is right…swerving introduces a lot of variables and, as you point out, raises your chance of hitting a tree. You also lose the chance to brake and you still might hit the moose.
But, people swerve when they shouldn’t.
Saabs were engineered to take the hit. I assume Volvos are. Not sure how well the A-pillars hold up on other cars.
Up here in my part of the great white north, moose are everywhere. Enough people have hit them and died over the years that the government has gone to great expense in putting up wire “moose fencing” along a good portion of the major highways with one-way gates to let animals out but not in.
They like to hang around flat lands and marshes especially, not always in the remote woods. They come into the cities frequently too. Oh yeah, I’m not in the wilderness either. I’m a 90 minute drive to the US border.
Collisions are down a bit now, but a guy I work with died this past spring when he hit a moose on his way home from visiting family.
As for the argument for stopping short of one instead of swerving I have a couple of comments.
1. Most moose collisions around here happen at night and they are rarely on back roads. You can’t see them until it’s too late. I had this happen about 15 years ago and I was lucky to get around it (swerving). All I saw was legs in front of my 1992 Saturn. This was on a 4-lane divided highway with a 110 km/h speed limit.
2. Even if you do stop short, this isn’t Bambi we’re talking about. Moose get pissed off when you startle them. Now you’ll have to deal with a 840–1,500 lb (according to Wiki) angry animal that stands up to 6’9″ tall (at the shoulder!) coming at your car. Good luck!
3. I’m not sure on the exact stats, but taking the hit sounds like an awful idea from some of the pictures and reports I have seen. Again, this is no deer.
4. The only people who tend to survive these crashes are driving semis. A good portion of the semis around here have a large steel push bar on their front end to protect them even further. It’s like a cow catcher on a train.
@BunkerMan
Thanks for the info. I killed a Bambi around 3 weeks ago, and I’m still a bit afraid to drive at night for fear of Bambi’s father coming out to exact revenge. Thankfully I don’t think the Green Bay, WI area has many, if any, deer anywhere near us. If it did… oh dear god.
@NorthwestT, I’d rather take my chances with a pine tree than the moose. At least you’re taking the hit with the nose of your car than the A-pillars.
@Bunkerman, I’ve seen moose twice from behind the steering wheel on the roads in Finland. Both times were on a long straight so I was able to spot them silhoutted against the sky and stop before I reached them. The second one was a female that stopped in the road and started looking at me. I put the gear in reverse, clutch down and gunned the engine a little bit, that got it going again.
They’re very well camouflaged against their surroundings, that brown color blends perfectly into the trees at dusk or dawn when they like to move. “Look for a pair of tennis socks walking out of the woods” was the rule to go by, as the white tips of their legs are the only thing you’ll see (Canadian ones don’t even have that, I believe).
Bunkerman, I would love to see data that says one way or the other but until then I have to try to apply common sense.
In rural areas, you see a lot of one-car fatal accidents where the driver left the road and hit something. Why did they leave the road? Nobody will ever know, but you can guess that some percentage of them are because the driver tried to avoid something. They succeeded in avoiding the first obstruction but not the second.
My experience has been with deer only. I know that they have reflective eyes. If I am driving at night and see a quick flash in my peripheral vision, I apply the brakes gently. Maybe I am imagining things. Maybe it was fireflies. A few times in my life it has been a deer. I was ready each time – stand on the pedal my foot was already touching. Yes, I did swerve but I was also traveling 20-30 mph slower than just a few seconds prior to that. If I was on a two lane road I would have taken the hit and walked away. I’m confident in that. There is no way I am going into oncoming traffic or off the road unless someone can show me enough data to convince me it’s a better idea.
I think Bunkerman gave you enough reason, anecdotal or not. Yeah, people hit deer all the time in every region of this country. Deer are as rare as squirrels, and just as pesky too. Moose are not, and people that live near moose should be trusted with their understanding of the animal and the relation to saving your own life if you happen to venture across one on the road.
Moose also behave differently than deer. Accidents happen during the day as well, more frequently than with deer…maybe a little different than in Canada (altitude difference?). They come thundering down from a hillside onto the road, they aren’t necessarily hiding behind some tall grasses. They’ll also run right at you, not necessarily freezing up like a deer. Google “moose car accident” and look at some of the images.
I based my opinion on what I’ve seen as a result of vehicle and moose collisions. I stated what I’d rather do if the options are limited, rolling a vehicle is a last resort as is running into the moose. Obviously. But, you have no information to understand the circumstance and equate hitting a deer to being similiar. It’s not at all. I’ve hit deer, I’ve hit jackrabbits, I’ve gone to the body shop. I hit a moose, I go to the morgue.
Bunkerman is absolutely DEAD ON. Maine currently has a population explosion of moose – estimated at over 35000! At one point there was a fatality a DAY due to collisions for a good stretch last year. Moose are seriously bad business to hit – semi-truck driver’s actually DON’T always survive the experience of hitting a big bull. A bad one recently was a truck hit a moose and sent it flying into a direct hit on a car going the other way. Killed both drivers.
Having had a couple of close encounters on the road in my lifetime I can say that you WON’T see one until it is damned near too late. The moose here do not have the white “socks” and they also do not have particularly reflective eyes. There is absolutely nothing scarier than seeing something zip across the road at the limit of your headlights and realizing that it was a moose that just flashed past your car’s side window at 60mph. This is why every other car in Sweden has a HUGE pair of megawattage spotlights bolted to the front of it, and so did I when I was in college and driving back and forth through moose country every week. Saved my butt on a couple occasions.
Though realistically, ALL of Maine is moose country, they wander into downtown Portland occasionally! Also, moose don’t just dart across the road like deer do. I came around a corner back in college to damn near go up the backside of one trotting merrily down the MIDDLE of the road. Locked up all four in my Jetta GLI and actually slid to a stop beside the damned thing. Didn’t phase him a bit, he looked down at me, I looked up at him and he trotted off down the road a bit and turned into the woods.
I’ll take my chances going into the trees if necessary – better than having 1500lbs of moose meat into the windshield. The airbags do not help in that scenario at all. And the birch and pine that tend to line the road around here are “relatively” soft! Try to avoid the oaks and maples though.
In an earlier life I used to go on the occasional moose collision clean-up (as part of my job back then, responding to the RCMP in what we used to lovingly call the ‘moose truck’), and I’ve seen up close what a moose can do to a vehicle (to say nothing of the people in it). Please believe me when I tell you that you don’t want to hit a moose.
Not only are moose deadly if you hit one, they will also sometimes try to hit you. During rutting season, moose will put their heads down and charge semis.
They also run fast – I once had one run beside my car at ~60 km/h before (luckily) jumping away from my car, and disappearing into the woods.
I don’t think there should be one rule for moose encounters, but definitely scrub off all the speed you can before having to decide. You just need to improvise, depending on the situation. Even consider setting the parking brake and jumping out as a last resort.
You’d be surprised how much time you have to think when everything goes into ‘slow motion’. The problem is getting your limbs to react fast enough, but they can.
I lived in eastern Maine(WaCo and if you know where that is I feel for you) for a few years and had several moose encounters. I had several mildly lifted trucks at the time an XJ a Ramcharger and A toyota pickup. I encountered several moose usually late at night and on back roads with blind curves (you could usually see them far off if you were running late on 95 ) Never even lifted a tire As I recall every time I slammed on the brakes then turned as speed was scrubbed ran half off the road to go around one standing in the middle of the road near Cutler one night. Personally I don’t know of anyone who has rolled a car avoiding a moose up there and belive me there are plenty of cars up there that would roll given half a chance, but did meet a few people who totaled cars hitting them and heard 2nd hand of the deaths. I personnaly don’t think the drive pattern is quite right it seems like the test driver has done it so many times hes more trying to get a car to fail then perform an actual avoidance maneuver. Now I have lifted a tire in the ramcharger a couple of times. Once I was cut off by a 7 series beamer (in mass where else) while cruising at 75 in the middle lane he decided to change lanes right in to my fender, I saw it happening laid on the horn and cut the wheel to avoid him I would have corrected before the wheel lift but he kept coming on to may lane which meant I had to keep going to the left some tire screaming and a nice bit of body roll later I had it back on the straight and narrow.
I’m a University of Maine at Machias alum (class of ’93) so I know Washington County quite well indeed! Most of my moose encounters were on Rt182. With 400W of Hella’s finest on the bumper of my GLI, seeing them on the straights was not a problem. The fun twisties on Rt 182 were another story entirely.
Given the current moose problem, it has to be a lot worst Downeast now than it was 20 years ago. I sure hope they sell a bunch more moose licenses this year.
This should be interesting…batter up Chrysler…
STFD in Moose Country and not need to swerve that fast.
The test was conducted at 39.5 mph. That is STFD on any country road. I’ve lived places where driving slower than that will get you shot at.
So, alas, the last option is to ban the sale of SUVs in their country. It’s the only way to make sure someone driving 39.5 MPH won’t be harmed.
This is not an SUV problem. It is a Jeep Grand Cherokee problem. No other SUV tested has failed to avoid the moose.
The JGC went up on two wheels and bounced like a rubber ball even after Chrysler made some changes to the software and lowered the cargo weight? That’s terrible! New and better software and new specs would be the way to cover this up…
There’s the other moose test where they simulate hitting a moose. I think Saab and Volvo always did it. The A pillars on most cars don’t survive…food for thought.
Up above I mention the master’s thesis from the guy that developed the test. The moose dummy is almost twice as heavy as the average moose involved in a real life crash and the car is moving at a higher than average speed.
They do this so they can gather as much useful data as possible; they aren’t testing the survivability of your typical moose/car crash. This is also probably why they aren’t out seeking maximum publicity when a car they test gets absolutely flattened, unlike this particular magazine.
Or it’s down to the fact that they are a government agency that hasn’t received funding for continuously testing passenger vehicles. So there isn’t much to publish. Oh and by the way the current dummy, Mosses II, weights 350 kg, or about what the average adult moose in Sweden weights in autumn.
RE: “Who’s to blame here? ” Can we just blame the driver for being stupid enough to steer into oncoming traffic to avoid the moose? Even if the the GC executes the Moose test perfectly, he has probably run the other driver off the road.
Who says anything about oncoming traffic?
I, personally, am here typing at this computer, because a few months ago, I, personally, had to do a Honda Odyssey test as opposed to a moose test. The driver of the Honda failed to look to the left – where I was approaching – before opting to start out from a stop sign – I already knew there was no oncoming traffic and went into the other lane to go around the errant Honda. Slamming on the brakes wouldn’t have gotten the job done.
I expect the vehicle to respond correctly to driver inputs in circumstances like this … as opposed to either going up on two wheels or blowing a tire.
I also expect a vehicle to respond correctly to drive inputs – as long as the inputs are reasonable. We have yet to truly see the full picture, so I find it difficult to comment on.
You know, maybe cars need a “maximum maneuvering speed” like airplanes have. On airplanes, there is an airspeed (marked on the airspeed indicator) below which full control deflection cannot cause structural failure. Above that speed, full control deflection can overload the airframe and cause structural failure.
The idea that you should be able to apply full control deflection in a car at any speed just makes me laugh. Frankly, a failure mode where the loaded front tire fails rather than allow the car vehicle to overturn sounds like a good idea to me.
Then again, considering we let people drive automobiles with a level of experience that wouldn’t even qualify a student pilot for a solo flight, well… LOL
> American buyers don’t put five adults in an SUV.
I suspect this was said in jest. I see overloaded SUVs with under inflated bald tires barreling down the left lane at 90+ mph all the time. Typically they have 6 or 7 passengers, rear hatch window completely blocked by luggage and a large cargo box on the roof rack. I would estimate most of them are overloaded by a factor of 2.
No doubt. Whatever light duty these things do with their first owners is irrelevant when they hit their second or third owners, who could well be the once-cossetted baby grown into a teenager with ten friends or a coyote hauling a load of illegal aliens.
A poorly maintained car is always dangerous regardless of whether it is an SUV/CUV, sedan, coupe, wagon, convertible, truck, motorcycle, or bicycle.
That may be true Dan, but the Moose Test indicates that a properly maintained Jeep Grand Cherokee is dangerous when fully loaded.
Even properly inflated new tires are often not up to the task since SUVs aren’t required to have speed rated rubber. I cringe every time I see some arse driving his overloaded Suburban at triple digit speeds down the highway on stock tires.
The X5 also almost flips over. No moose involved.
http://youtu.be/YXumv1gI7pk
It looks like the X5 may have been tripped by the small berm along the edge of the road. Watch the right front tire.
That X5 isn’t on flat ground and it looks like it’s going quite a bit more quickly than 43mph…you can flip anything if you’re driving it in a rally lol.
“Moosegate” made me spit coffee on my computer. Better get a copyright on that fast, Jack.
Honestly, I was gonna beg him to just take it down, because the only thing more hackneyed than slapping “-gate” on the Scandal du jour is using the term “hackneyed” to describe anything other than travel in a specific brand of cab prevalent in 19th Century England.
But seriously, this fails to meet the standard of a “-gate” even if one considers the term not to be cliched rubbish on its face:
*No break-ins were involved.
*No confidential informants were required to break the story.
*No major political or corporate leaders will likely resign as a result.
Tacking “-gate” on the end of a noun is the journalistic equivalent of a comic making fun of airline food and ending the bit with “Am I right, people?”
Also, “Moosegate” would be more of a trademark thing than a copyright thing.
Of course the term is cliched rubbish, that’s what makes it fun.
Also, it is possible that, during the moose avoidance maneuver, one might inadvertently drive/plow/roll through a…
wait for it…
GATE.
So what you’re saying is that jack is guilty of instigating the Moosegategate, where his lazy usage of -gate is in itself a -gate worthy moment?
How about a professional review of the test driver? The video from inside the GC looks like a complete mess of steering inputs. He also seems to be way behind in steering back to the left and I know the shuffle steering must infuriate you.
It shouldn’t require a professional driver to keep the Jeep planted.
But it’s so bad that it almost look intentional, he’s continuing to steer to the right while it’s on two wheels.
Funny that this usually happens to a top selling vehicle. I would love to have a look at those tires and if they were stock off the shelf. I have seen a few tests so rigged from the Corvair (watch the film in slow motion) and the Subbie versus Volvo XC. With that one, up a muddy hill the driver “floors” the Volvo and induces instant slip while with the Subbie, the driver feathers it so smoothly it goes up nicely. On the other hand, my Volvo XC has better traction in the slippery conditions than my Saab XWD. Then I changed the tires. Remember, the old Explorer “roll over” was traced to poorly manufactured tires.
Considering it’s a test to see if an ordinary driver can do the maneuver without flipping, wouldn’t using a pro defeat the purpose?
Actually, for the purposes of reproducibility from car to car, you’d want a trained pro at the wheel so they use the same steering inputs every time.
EuroNcap does stability control tests with a machine that turns the wheel at the exact same speed and to the same degree of severity for every test. 100% repeatable, with no “human” factor. Google it, I’m sure there’s videos floating around.
Scheisse, I get dragged into moose related topics like mooses are attracted to apples (drunk moose, hilarious). But here I go. He (Name Ruben Börjesson for those in a googley mood) is pretty much a professional driver. Several national trophies in Rally, six consecutive times winner of the international police rally i Liege, police driving instructor, worked as instructor for Jackie Stewart, has worked as a highway cop since the 60’s. Now spending his retirement testing cars. Unfortunately I can’t find a picture of his bad-ass Russian hat.
While I’m usually dubious of consumer-pub tests like this that point fingers, I think they’re on to something.
It may be called a ‘moose test’, but this 43 mph maneuver is performed thousands of times a day on roads around the world. TV’s assertion that this car is uniquely bad among the many they’ve testing in this manner is compelling.
Blown tires, lifted wheels, and funky load capacities are going to be hard for Jeep to defend.
The suspension seems oh so soft. Maybe all this car needs is more sway bar and springs under it, closer to the SRT8 Jack is referring to. The comparison vehicles weren’t nearly as sloppy.
“The suspension seems oh so soft. Maybe all this car needs is more sway bar and springs under it, closer to the SRT8 Jack is referring to. The comparison vehicles weren’t nearly as sloppy.”
The GC is a bit more complicated than that. Depending on the model, you’ve got a height-adjustable air suspension or a standard steel-spring suspension. You’ve got two different 4wd systems – one has electric LSDs and the other uses some sort of traction control system that activates individual brakes as needed. And then you have three or four different wheel size options – each with different sidewall sizes and tread compositions. You can pretty much pick any combination of the above and each combination is going to perform differently on this test.
I have to say that the super massive wheels on this particular Jeep probably didn’t help it out much, almost looks like the wheel goes and smushes the low profile tire off.
And to be fair, it does look like Jeep has had relatively mediocre roll-over control based on rollover deaths:
http://www.iihs.org/externaldata/srdata/docs/sr4605.pdf
Mind you, the overall death rates for Jeep vehicles aren’t bad, though the very best competitors have essentially no rollover deaths (i.e. Edge, Lexus RX, etc.) Of course, these vehicles may all be driven in different conditions but it’s at least clear that Jeep doesn’t historically have the very best in anti-rollover safety. The fact that they had to reflash the 2011 V6 Laredo’s in the US doesn’t really help their argument:
http://news.consumerreports.org/cars/2011/02/update-chrysler-fixes-2011-jeep-grand-cherokee-handling-problem.html
Frankly I thought they gave a pretty crappy response to the magazine, and now that the magazine has published the other videos and the load weights it just makes Fiat-Chrysler look like liars.
Consumer Reports does essentially the same test, and the 2011 V6 Laredo did such a poor job that Chrysler issued a TSB to reflash the stability control for V6 models to earn a higher score.
Given that this vehicle has already had one tweak as a result of doing poorly in an emergency lane change test, I am going to give the nod to the Swedes on this one.
http://news.consumerreports.org/cars/2011/02/update-chrysler-fixes-2011-jeep-grand-cherokee-handling-problem.html
The moral of the story is, drive a Miata and live! You can just drive under the moose.
Also, couldn’t stop laughing at the bicycle helmet that guy was wearing during the test.
Make sure the top is up. Otherwise you may get smacked in the face with a bull moose’s pride and joy.
-Hey Dan, what happen to your face?
-I ran into a giant coc… oh never mind.
You might become a member of the Bull Moose Party.
What? No raised trucks/SUVs are trash and so are their drivers comments? Standards are sadly slipping :p
Someone once told me the first-gen Cayenne is untippable.
Yeah, and the Titanic was unsinkable.
Oh… Look what i found on you tube. Its the EuroNcap version of a moose test for the JGC.
http://youtu.be/f0YZeNLTx_g
It’s not really a comparable test. The side movement is limited to 6′ and the car has just 168 kg of load including “driver” and test equipment as per the FMVSS No 126 code courtesy of the US. The test euro ncap performs is aimed at testing just the electronic nannies, it’s rather a shame that ncap doesn’t include the ISO 3888 test as well.
So what you’re saying is the NCAP test is reproducible. Got it.
@ smokingclutch
No, what I’m saying is that it’s an easier test to pass. Following ISO 3888 yields repeatable results as well, indicated by blowing a tier 50% of the times with the JGC.
Does the diesel powertrain weigh more than the standard gas V6 and V8 models? Perhaps a higher center of gravity?
I’m from deer country, but do any of you know how North American pickups are against a moose-strike?
Not much better than any other vehicle. You might have a little more crush space with the longer hood but you’re still pretty much screwed.
I think “deer country” applies to any rural or suburban area in the US. At least from what I’ve seen in the places I’ve lived.
Deer are pretty much everywhere. It does seem that my current location in WV is more densely populated than anywhere else I’ve lived, though.
instead of trying to answer this ridiculous question of “how do we fix it”, why don’t we actually look at the test it self? it’s simply absurd. i live in deer country ohio, and i’ve dealt with these SOBs since i first began driving at 16. not once have i EVER performed a lane change-esque maneuver WITH OUT using the brakes or while holding the gas steady. yet it’s mandatory in this test for the driver to hold the gas pedal steady and NOT use the brakes. maybe i’m not representative of the typical driver, but my natural instincts tell me to SLOW DOWN when there’s an unexpected object in my path.
then again, my first car was a 2WD geo tracker. needless to say, i KNOW what it feels like to be on two wheels, and i know what NOT to do to avoid that scenario. maybe instead of handicapping off-road performance to pass an absurd unrealistic test, we should make everyone’s first car a geo tracker for suzuki samurai! i can guarantee it would make everyone that survives the age of 16 a better driver…
While I completely agree with what you are saying, as someone who was once chased by an adult moose in Alaska, I must point out that they are nothing like deer. More like houses with legs. Long ones.
i don’t disagree what so ever. however, the unexpected object in front of me on the road is largely irrelevant – whether it’s a deer or a moose, i sure as hell don’t want to hit the damn thing, and will take evasive action as such!
Agree that this test is stupid, or at least the expectation that every vehicle should be able to perform this maneuver, but if you do try to swerve or double swerve as in this test you really do need to stay on the gas. Lifting off the throttle can cause your back end to come loose on rwd cars. Been there.. done that. Not fun.
Ironically every vehicle tested CAN perform this maneuvre — except the Grand Cherokee. So stupid or not, that truck scores poorly on this particular handling test, worse than just about everything that has been tested over the past few decades (Mercedes A-Class and Skoda Superb aside, both of which have seen changes subsequent to the poor initial test results).
But as has been discussed before, the underlying cause is likely the incorrect weight data supplied by Fiat to the European governments, whether intentionally (why?) or accidentally (shouldn’t someone check the numbers?).
So the conclusion is, if you’re in your jeep and a Moose jumps out of nowhere in front of you. Stop the car, change the tires to a better brand, remove all pasengers and luggage, get back INTO the car, swerve to avoid the deer.
@ Chicago Dude, A lot of one vehicle rural accidents will also have empty beer cans in the vehicle. Just saying.
I suppose it’s good that this potential safety issue is getting so much attention. I just wish that EuroNCAP’s findings when they tested the JGC in late 2011 got as much attention (the seat rail nearly broke in two; no word yet on whether or not Jeep has fixed it. Hopefully the 2013s will have the fix as I’d love to buy a JGC once the 2013s hit dealer lots). More on the test and findings here: http://euroncap.com/results/jeep/grand_cherokee/2011/460.aspx
High center of gravity, narrow tires, soft suspension – all fine for off-roading, not so great for at speed moose avoidance. And no matter what you might think I’m pretty sure 99% of folks would swerve, its the automatic and natural reaction to a large object in your path of travel.
Thus nothing to see here… typical SUV handling, not surprised in the least. I sold my Iszuz Rodeo after only 8 months because I had to avoid an accident (no moose, just another car) and it was like trying to turn the Titanic. I provided input (lots of it) and the vehicle just listed to port while my bearings remained unchanged. After that I realized that for normal road driving SUVs are not ideal. Granted the vehicle I owned prior to the SUV was a Prelude Si with aftermarket wider rims/tires which could corner at insane speeds (“on-rails” as they say) so my idea of “handling” was (and still is) somewhat skewed.
Why would you need to buy a GC to test it? Just rent one, pony up for the full insurance and have at it!
Anyways- the fact that the car repeatedly blows its tire no an emergency maneuver, is indeed a worrisome trait.
He hadn’t even cleared the 2nd set of cones before turning right. Rather, he turned directly into the cones and the inside tires went over the top of them. He went from a left maneuver to a right, all in one motion. He was supposed turn left then straight ahead, right then straight ahead.
You can induce a roll like you can induce oversteer. He used the suspension’s recoil of the left maneuver to lift the tires on the right maneuver. He was fighting with the wheel before it started to roll. Or else why didn’t it start to roll when he initially veered left?
Samurai all over again, where is CR in all of this?
They don’t need a big publicity hit right now, so no need to falsifiy a test to get attention.
http://news.consumerreports.org/cars/2012/07/jeep-grand-cherokee-fails-swedish-moose-test-lessons-for-us-consumers.html
SUVs aren’t inherently terrible, once you deal with the physics of tall and heavy. I had a 2000 Explorer with a limited slip rear end and the one time I had to make an emergency maneuver, a swerve into another lane to avoid stopped traffic at 55mph, it just went where I put it. Yeah there was some body lean but it wasn’t any worse than most FWD sedans. It handled pretty well for a trucklet.
CR tested it a when it came out and they warned about the same thing I just saw the video on Youtube, supposedly they fixed the problem so I wonder if the model that was used in this test was an older one.
The narrative supplied by the magazine provides interesting details. In particular, an important detail is that this model is equipped with an air suspension, which they left on the “auto” setting.
It looks to me like the suspension is underdamped; that is, it does a poor job of dissipating the energy stored in the suspension when the car changes direction. Notice that it is always the second swerve which causes the failures. This is caused by the suspension unloading on the right side as the car straightens out, adding to the load on the left side suspension and tires as the car attempts to change direction again. That’s why it’s always the left front tire which fails; that corner is getting the brunt of the force from the suspension unloading on the opposite side and the car’s change of direction. I doubt that it’s the tires that are crap; it’s that that particular tire is exceeding its load rating by a lot at that particular moment. Even when the tire doesn’t fail (the first test), you can see that the tire is just about compressed to the rim. When that happens and the tire is inflated to recommended pressure, it’s being grossly overloaded. You can’t expect it to stand up to that kind of abuse.
My guess is that the air suspension should either be programmed to increase damping more rapidly in response to such violent maneuvers, or simply have a default setting with a higher level of damping in the first place.
It very well could be that the cheaper model with the steel-and-shocks suspension will not show these kinds of problems, even if it has a less cushy ride. Notice that the Toureg and XC90 do not lean over nearly as much when executing that maneuver. Their suspensions’ roll resistance is obviously much higher, and the suspension isn’t storing and having to dissipate nearly as much energy as that of the JGC.
The video well illustrates the problem with high-riding vehicles which have large amounts of suspension travel: when the car make an abrupt lateral maneuver, the suspension on the outside of the turn stores a lot of energy, which it releases as soon as the vehicle stops generating force in that direction. That release tends to roll the vehicle in the opposite direction (a tendency exacerbated by the soft, long travel suspension on the other side). The vehicle’s height exacerbates the weight transfer to the other side, caused by vehicle roll.
I’m sure that the SRT-8 version of this vehicle which Jack blasted around a track doesn’t have this kind of suspension, doesn’t roll nearly as much in response to lateral forces, is more aggressively damped . . . and has an unpleasant ride in the real world environment. And I bet the same is true for all of the other “hot” SUVs from Benz, BMW and Porsche.
It would be interested if these guys tested this car with the air suspension set to some kind of firm, or “sport” setting, assuming one is available.
i believe you mean “spring rate” in place of “damping”. the shocks control the damping and the air suspension equipped GC still comes with standard non-adjusting shocks. air bags are merely another form of “spring” and thus still need separate shocks to control damping. being that the shocks are standard non-adjustables(I.E., not magnetorheological shocks found on some GM vehicles), damping is fixed.
if you’re saying that the computer controlling the air suspension should adjust the air pressure inside the air springs to compensate for these high inertia evasive maneuvers, i highly doubt thats physically possible with the current technology being used. such a system would require a high pressure air tank constantly holding air with very fast acting solenoids to instantly pressurize the air springs a very specific amount in the matter of milliseconds. but current factory air suspension equipped cars don’t even have an air tank i don’t believe, just a small air compressor to fill up the air springs. simply not a feasible idea.
I think it might be good to point out that the reason SUVs were created was to avoid car safety and pollution regulations. You’re essentially dealing with antiquated engineering that wasn’t so good when it was first introduced. (Somewhere around world war 2)
You may have sophisticated electronics etc in the present breed but tall and top heavy is never going to work for you. You may say that the Explorers’ killings were due to poor tires, but I’d say that those were the tires Ford chose knowing that the handling was already crap.
My guess is that most any car is safer than any SUV or pickup truck (unless the SUV rides over the cars bumper and enter directly into the passenger compartment – thanks) but that none will be the better for wear after moose hunting.
Also note that the despised minivan – in addition to being much more space efficient and better handling – also conforms to car safety and pollution standards and handles much better than the average SUV. Almost any can hold 6 people , luggage and roll down the road in cheery comfort.
–“I think it might be good to point out that the reason SUVs were created was to avoid car safety and pollution regulations.”–
SUVs were actually created to traverse rough terrain, back when many roads still weren’t paved(generally credited to the mid-30s). the reason that they have persisted in the market place despite the significantly condition of todays roads is because customers want them. manufacturers aren’t holding guns to customers heads and forcing them to buy worse handling, more polluting, less “safe”(in your opinion) SUVs instead of cars or minivans. whether or not these customers buying these SUVs use them for off-road purposes or not is irrelevant, because they demand them regardless.
personally, i’ll risk my “safety” and drive an SUV any day of the week over a minivan…
–“You may say that the Explorers’ killings were due to poor tires, but I’d say that those were the tires Ford chose knowing that the handling was already crap.”–
the firestone tires were actually defective – ford chose them thinking that firestone could actually produce a tire that wouldn’t fail and cause their customers to lose control. the roll overs in question didn’t happened when the tread on these defective tires would separate from the tire, causing a loss of control at the aforementioned highway speeds. ford also offered goodyear tires on those same year ford explorers which have a clean safety record in comparison to the firestone tires. to quote the NHTSA’s press release…
“But the agency concluded that “the data does not support Firestone’s contention that Explorers in general, or even model year 1995 and later two-wheel drive Explorers in particular, are more likely to” cause a loss of control following a rear tread separation and tire failure than other, comparable SUVs.
…Moreover, the vast majority of tread separations, including many that occurred at highway speeds, do not result in crashes.”
The first SUVs, like the International Travelall and original Chevy Suburban, were marketed and sold (in small numbers) to hunters and fisherman and uranium prospectors in the ’50s and ’60s. What started in the ’80s was a new phenomenon– they were marketed to suburbanites and housewives as station wagon substitutes. The Big Three decided that these easy-to-produce, very profitable vehicles earned bagfuls of cash, while allowing them to avoid much of the race in emissions and safety tech against the Euro and Japanese makers. So what began as a useful but specialized tool turned into an excess of fashion. Probably not the first time that happened…
Clearly the popping tire is an anti-rollover safety feature.
Yumpin’ Yimminy, that’s one leapin’ Yeep!
raise the bag limit on Moose…
problem solved!
Sell the Jeep Grand Cherokee on your driveway now. You have a small window of opportunity while the Obama loving media sandbags this Jeep issue. problem solved!
That picture of the Jeep on 2 wheels, or even the story of tires being blown in normal vehicle moves will destroy the possibility of a resale.
Obama loving media?
Does everything have to be political?
What about the Obama hating media? You know, Fox?
This test clearly illustrates that traction nannies are there to help, but do something stupid enough and you’re on your own.
Nope, my SUV replaced a mullet truck. That messes with everyone’s demographic cliches.
Maybe I’ve driven too many SUVs and pickups, but I’ve driven my friend’s 2012 GC over a dozen times, in bad weather and good, aggressively, and not had the slightest concern about it’s stability. In fact, it’s the best of any I have ever driven, going back to the original Chevy K5 Blazer.
Jeep, follow the example of J&J with the Tylenol scare, recall and permanently fix your problem. The triple seal became an industry standard and increased public safety.
For those who think the moose test is irrelevant or unrealistic, check this out the last sentence of this article from moose-free North Carolina:
http://www.newsobserver.com/2012/07/15/2199863/two-killed-in-i-40-collision-by.html
“Police said the man and woman killed then were in a car that swerved to avoid Carden’s car and flipped over.”