Consumer Reports pulls Toyota recommendations (Prius v, RAV4, Camry)

Regardless of the IIS overlap crash test and CR's recommendations - I still like my Prius.

The Chevy Malibu's front axle-steering linkage looks like it is design to quickly break off on overlap crash - on a four year old Malibu I would suspect that this kind of damage would likely get a insurance adjuster to *total* the car.

I am all for safer cars but the overlap crash test scenario doesn't appear to be as common in my area when I am driving because people tend to bash each other head (front bumper to rear bumper collision) on in my area because of rush hour bumper to bumper traffic.

The overlap crash scenario requires that the front of a Prius crashes into the right rear end of another vehicle as the Prius attempts to merge into the left lane OR an oncoming vehicle (driven by a DUI driver) drives in wrong lane and hits a Prius that is driving in the opposite direction OR a Prius drives off the road into a barrier on its left side (because the driver falls a sleep on the wheel) .

 

my dad's neighbor purchased a new liftback for his daughter last year, and yesterday he told us that she and a friend were in a high speed crash which crushed her car so badly that they needed the jaws to get them out. both were treated for superficial wounds at the hospital and released. that's 'good enough' for me, (and her parents) she will be getting another prius.

 

On the other hand CR savaged the C-Max and similar Ford products on reliability.

And Motor Trend had the Prius second on its list of hybrids/diesels etc. They had the hatch only getting 43MPG the way they drive on their tests. And they used one optioned to cost $36k+. Where others were very much less optioned. This caused by them having to ask the car manufacturers for the cars they test as opposed to CR who buys them. They have to take what the car maker has available.

 

A More Detailed Test with individual Data?​

Euro NCAP Crash Test Results for Plug-In Vehicles

Toyota Prius | Euro NCAP - For safer cars crash test safety rating

Euro NCAP Crash Test Results for Plug-In Vehicles

 

CR crash issues involved the V and not the hatchback version. If you compare them, you'll notice significant construction differences. Rest assured Toyota will re-engineer their V and other failures to better score next time around. This crash is different than the head-on test, it's a corner-smacker. I love to read how folks bash CR and say ridiculous things about their reviews and testing (as if they aren't FIERCELY independent and hire ACTUAL engineers). We used CR's car buying program, and bought our III below-cost at net/net/net, the Holy Grail of car-buying: Net factory rebates, net secret holdback, net factory incentives. Their hands-on rigorous scientific testing (in the same manner on the same track under the same conditions) also kept us from wasting our money for small returns on the Prius Plug-in as an alternative to our III model, now sporting a trailer hitch, air bag suspension, and a lighting kit.

 

Significant difference?

Larger wheels, larger brakes, stiffer springs, different shock rate. That's all!


If you look at the part numbers for the engine cradle, suspension parts and sheet metal, they are have the same numbers.

 

How do they control for weather, temperature, and fuel formulation?
I know they don't test when it's wet out, but that still leaves the issue of winds.
It appears they use corner station fuel. Different seasonal fuel blends and temperatures can easily mean a 2 to 3 mpg difference in the same car.
Then how do they control for driving styles of the drivers. Or traffic and lights for their on road testing.
CR has never published a test profile like the EPA has on their site. Between that the variables they seem to not control for, it doesn't appear to be that rigorous.

 

You're right, although the Prius V is higher. Oh, and wider. Yep, it's longer too. Did I mention the wheelbase is also longer? Or that the ground clearance is higher...that's maybe why it's over 200 pounds heavier and has different crash performance - it's a different vehicle, significantly.

 

I think planning to execute a full frontal crash rather than an offset frontal crash might be justifiable when there was no other feasible alternative.
Similar to planning for an airplane crash landing as a pilot, you must visualize the forced landing situations and exactly how you would execute each scenario. eg. Recently learned to land downstream in a River landing rather than upstream.

 

CR isn't doing the testing, iihs is.

http://www.iihs.org/media/ec54a7ea-1a1d-4fb2-8fc3-b2e018db2082/-1745465934/Ratings/Protocols/current/small_overlap_test_protocol.pdf

 

I was responding to a post about CR's MPG testing.

 

I have to stand up and defend CR a little. If all cars get a good on all the old tests and a new tests gives poor ratings why not talk about it. In the end we will have safer cars.

 

Precisely. Toyota isn't being called out for being Toyota. It is being called out for not passing a new test, that other makes and models have passed despite there not being being a test previously to show their efforts to passenger safety.

It's the difference between designing a car to be safe and one to past the tests.

 

From your POV, Prius v was not designed to be a safe car?!

 

In most cases, cars are safe today because of regulations and testing. There have been incidences where a manufacturer has been proactive in regards to safety, but very few of them have had a culture of being so across the board. The regulations set a floor that a car has to meet. the tests ensure that the car meets that floor, and give an estimate on how well it exceeds it.

In light of the poor off set test score, safety was not a priority in the design of the Prius v. That doesn't make it unsafe. It do well on the established tests for CR's previous recommendation. The off set test results show that collision scenarios outside of the standard testing were not considered during the design.

Other cars did better on this test. Some even got the highest rank. I admit that could have been a happy coincidence on other design decisions for those cars. For some companies, such as Volvo, it was likely in consideration of passenger safety.

Toyota might be unfairly called out in headlines over this in order to sell papers and generate web traffic, but they did have car models that did poorly on a test that others did pass.

 

Independant does not mean unbiased or competant. I find their mpg testing quite incompetant and biased. Their criteria for recomendations, based on poor criteria.

Pick a random high school kid and tell them to test drive 5 cars. They will be independant. That doesn't mean much.

You could have read car and driver or motor trend to find the differences between the phv and liftback. A buying program is quite different than a reviewing program. I have no idea what an airbag suspension is, but its likely whatever it is consumer reports would not say it is a good buy If you like the biases and criteria for consumer reports, fine, but many of us have different biases.

I certainly don't think that poor performance on a new test, of unlikely crashes, should disqualify a car from recommendation. But that is IMHO. I know consumer reports and IIHS want to stay relevant, but when they do this by making fake headlines that safe cars are unsafe, it does not give me any confidance that either organization has the consumer in mind. Its all about getting the sensationalist headline, just like the poor test that made the prius c seem like it was a relative gas guzzler and not recommended.

 

In the end, I'll lose about $5,000 due to a new crash test my new car failed. I can see it in resale today, I don;t have to wait long.

But in another 3-5 years, they'll have another crash test. They have to to remain relevant. The test itself doesn't have to be relavent, the media will report it, and the rest will follow. Imagine how safe a car could be. Falling from 200 feet onto the roof, with no collapsing

 

Austingreen, you'd benefit from a subscription and actually reading the articles and learning more about Consumer Reports and Consumers Union:

Consumer Reports Testing

Car and Driver and others take advertising money for their ratings and don't actually go out and buy the cars off lots they test. CU employs leagues of scientists and technicians with a ton of expertise and professional dedication to the Scientific Method. I'll assume you have no understanding of those concepts nor appreciation for what "independent" means to the commercial marketplace. BTW, air bags are Firestone Ride-Rite bags that level the vehicle. My Prius isn't an econobox meant to impress people with my fake environmentalism - it's a true multi-purpose vehicle that cuts my fuel costs.

 

In the lab, they might follow the scientific method, but their adherence to it is poor out on the track. By testing mpg outside with station fuel, they have surrendered control of exterior variables on their test. Temperature and seasonal fuel blends have an affect on fuel economy. Anyone paying attention to their mpg knows this. Apparently CR doesn't. Plus, they haven't publish their test protocols for it(acceleration rates, time at speeds, etc.).

This means that others can not repeat their test, and comparison between models can not be with total certainty.

 

Just a few comments to help clarify why we are no longer subscribing to Consumer Reports:
*** ORIGNAL and Comments ***
. . .
Car and Driver and others take advertising money for their ratings and don't actually go out and buy the cars off lots they test.
Car and Driver and many of the other auto magazines cater to an "image" and slant their writing to that image:


They are selling a car concept that has nothing to do with our daily grind:


One might as well listen to a car salesman:

. . . selling yesterday's technology, today.


CU employs leagues of scientists and technicians with a ton of expertise and professional dedication to the Scientific Method.
Well it isn't "leagues" as their staff, especially the automotive, are significantly smaller, based upon the by-lines of the articles I've seen over the years. They do have a "method" but it is flawed:

1. Copy-and-paste any 3d party safety report as gospel - they do not lift a finger to keyboard and research the actual traffic accident data to determine if a reported risk is real or a figment. This I found out during the "Bell the Hybrid" nonsense. But it was confirmed by the "Runaway Acceleration" and other 'safety' articles they have published. Safety is important and sometimes, like the SUV tip-over and Ford tire problem, there is evidence they did original work. But anyone who just 'cut-and-pastes' the reports of other is doing a disservice to any credible claims of safety.
2. Minimum acceleration rate - we can tell from a multi-element analysis that a car must meet their minimum acceleration rate, 0-60 in less than 11 seconds, or it gets whacked big-time in their 'score.' But Consumer Reports remains secretive about how their 'score' is actually calculated.
3. No weighting for fuel efficiency - from the same multi-element analysis, we find there is no correlation with vehicle fuel efficiency . . . NONE!
4. Heavy weighting for driver 'comfort' - again from the multi-element analysis, driver creature comforts gets an excessive weight.
5. Complete secrecy about how they measure mileage on their track - there are no published speed-elevation-acceleration charts or data. In contrast, the EPA protocol is well published and known. Yet Consumer Reports recently blasted the EPA results did not match the Consumer Reports undocumented protocol, claims.

Near as I can tell, Consumer Reports has an image they write to in their articles. They are secretive to the point of being not credible about how they calculate their "score" and worse, "mileage". Only their highway mileage has any basis in fact that can be reproduced, not their false, biased, urban mileage.
. . .
My Prius isn't an econobox meant to impress people with my fake environmentalism - it's a true multi-purpose vehicle that cuts my fuel costs.

Agreed!

*** END ***

The flaws in Consumer Reports automotive reports have gotten so bad we have dropped our subscription. If they can not get a major household expense like a car right, what hope is there for their other reviews?

What is the alternative? I've found subscription of Autoweek seems to be factually accurate and free for the bias seen in traditional magazines. I also like "Kicking Tires" from Cars.com and GreenCarCongress.com. It also helps to hang out with serious people like the PriusChat crowd. No, we don't always agree, but we have a high ratio of 'empiricists' who prefer to believe their own 'lying eyes' . . . with a few who don't to provide comic relief. Without a few 'sinners', we would never appreciate the 'saints.'

Bob Wilson