Did you recently take on (or consider) a loan of 84 months or longer on a car purchase?
A reporter would like to speak with you about your experience; please reach out to PR@Edmunds.com by 7/22 for details.
A reporter would like to speak with you about your experience; please reach out to PR@Edmunds.com by 7/22 for details.
Options
How about those pickup crash test results???????
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
Hey, another couple of GM products, the Seville & Deville, as well as alot of other GM products score very well in IIHS test results. Is that bogus also?
Just a guess but I imagine any nice heavy cargo you're carrying in the back of your truck is gonna come flying forward and do wonders for your posture. There's precious little protection between the driver and the cargo.
Dont ya think the front of the bed will stop cargo that goes sliding in a crash?
Your not carrying steel coild back there
redsilverado- as I stated yesterday, I drive a Honda Accord. I'm not trying to bash Ford, Chevy or anybody else. I came over here yesterday to make a small joke about the F-150 would have done better with non-Firestone tires on it (obviously the tires didn't effect the outcome of this test) and then Eagle## ask a question about real life stats which I happened to know the site that had that info and then the next thing I know I'm defending the IIHS. Anyhoo ... now I've REALLY got to get back to the SEDANS board. I sincerely hope I didn't offend anyone ... that was never my intention.
-
Baker and ripinrocket don't own pickups, but they are here to tell us what we need to know about something they know nothing about. ROTFLMFAO
Ryan
By the way, I drive a truck everyday.
I'm done with this board.
Not only did the Silverado did good on the IIHS it did well on the govs test too. The best of both worlds.
We do not have the education to study the actual crash numbers. I am sure not just easy math.
i bet there will be discussion of neck breaking coming soon
Oh well we know the facts
Ryan
http://www.hwysafety.org/vehicle_ratings/ce/html/grey_lgpickup.htm
In all but 2 categories, the Tundra had very significantly lower numbers than the Silverado. Those ARE the facts. The Tundra's Head Injury Count is 217, the Silverado's is 361. The Tundra's dummy did not hit anything. The Silverado's had a hard contact registering a peak 22Gs. This could be the difference between having a bad concussion and not having a concussion at all. Heck, even the poor rated F150 had lower femur force on the right leg than the Silverado at 2.2 kN versus 5.6 kN. Those ARE the facts.
The Silverado did the best at protecting human life? I don't think so...even if you discount the head injury ratings.
"We know the facts"? HA, what a laugh.
it benefits us all because the manufacturers has been made aware of the improvements that needs to be done...
LOL
the tundra still gets a vote from me for not being unrepairable, but like i said, we are all winners here, unless the truck makers decide to ignore the whole test. but you gotta admit, the chevy driver was able to walk away, how about the tundra driver?
<banging the gavel>
I'm calling this meeting to order (since I'm the one with the wooden hammer...LOL)
Our purpose: determine a method to TEST vehicle safety.
Beginning at the beginning...Point ONE: It HAS to be in a controlled environment. You can't simply look at anecdotal evidence from out on the road. Look where that gets you in the seatbelt arguement... one person get thrown clear of a bad wreck and lives, and suddenly wearing a seatbelt isn't smart? Kind of ignores the fact that virtually everyone thrown from a vehicle in a wreck winds up in the morgue.
Can we agree that it HAS to be a "laboratory" experiment?
...probably a futile effort to try and inject some reason into this, but what the heck...
PF Flyer
Host
Pickups & News & Views Message Boards
PF Flyer
Host
Pickups & News & Views Message Boards
I know it should be a controlled place not a freeway in the middle of rush hr.
Closed course if thats what you call a lab alright
PF Flyer
Host
Pickups & News & Views Message Boards
closed course for safety reasons
Whichever pick-up sustains the most damage loses.
Since some people say the tests are innacurate because it's conducted in a controlled environment, why not take the pick-ups on public highways and drive them in horrendous conditions like snow or heavy, and drive them as fast as you can until you loose control and hit something! Would that be a good way of doing crash testing?
Not equal tests
some did very good and some did very bad because of the difference in dimensions..
but reading my statement.. and the title of the thread.. it is pickup truck test.. I was thinking if they tested all types of vehicles and compared them..
ok I contradict myself now.. phew!
we all benefit here.. manufacturers can only make improvements their products based on this test..
If you want to say that the weight of the vehicle makes a difference in terms of "if the XYZ were heavier, the damage would have been different", I agree 100%... but if you manufature a vehicle, and I manufacture a vehicle and they test them by crashing them into a standard "obstacle", any weight difference (a design choice) in the vehicles is part of what's being tested.
To take it to a bit of an extreme for the sake of illustration, let's say we have two trucks that are roughly the same size. One weighs 2000# and one weighs 20#. At 40 MPH, there's definitely less energy to dissipate with the lighter truck. Given similar materials, the lighter truck should come through the test with less damage. That seems pretty obvious. The crash eats up the energy. The heavier the truck, the more energy it has to absorb. And that means that it will sustain more damage. How the design handles that increased need to safely dissipate the energy is what the test is about.
The test is fair in that the same things were done to both vehicles and the results noted. If you want to change the specs for one of the vehicles to get the result you want, then I'd call that bad testing.
Again, I have no horse in this race. I'm looking at all this fuss with as neutral an eye as I can...
Back to the committee... how would you suggest that vehicles be tested then?
PF Flyer
Host
Pickups & News & Views Message Boards
I think the thing some people think that was unfair with this test is that it is supposed to simlate a vehicle hitting an identical vehicle going the opposite way at the same speed. It doesn't do that very good either though. Just take the test for what it is. A vehicle oddly hitting a concrete barrier at 40 miles per hour.
I'd truly like to see how them beer cans hold up.
Test was supposed to simulate hitting something offset on driver's side. Most often that's another vehicle going the other way. But they used a rigid structure. Not realistic...handicaps the trucks and takes away their (very real) weight advantage.
A better test would be to put a deformable barrier on some sort of wheeled suspension, just like a car. Make the weight of the barrier consistent with an "average" car. Set the closing speed to simulate a crash...say 60 - 80 mph, if not 100 mph. Lock the tires of the barrier to simulate locked up brakes.
See what happens when the truck is allowed to push the other object out of the way some. You can bleed a lot of kinetic energy in momentum changes instead of forcing it all into deformation actions.
- The different weights of the vehicles do not point out a flaw in the test. Weight is an inherent part of the design and can be accounted for in the design process. If the weight was due to a strengthened passenger compartment the vehicle would probably fare better in tests.
- I thought the barrier in the test was deformable - not a solid object.
- You hit a car with a big truck and the car will almost certainly come off far worse. This is due to, as many have already pointed out - the weight and also due to the fact that trucks and SUVs do not have to follow federal regulations regarding bumper heights that cars must adhere to. This means that when a car and truck meet the frame of the truck cruises right over the bumper of the car and on into the passenger compartment (worst case). The fact that so many of the vehicles on the road are SUVs makes the federal bumper heights a bit of a joke really - if these restrictions were lifted we'd also probably see a lot more Euro small cars over here, Alfas and the like.
I'd like to see a set of safety tests where the various trucks get crashed into each other head on at autobahn speeds. To simulate the various differences between crashes, repeat the tests but with the cars going off ramps into each other, towing boats, barrel rolling...etc. Perform the tests in a stadium with a liquor license and allow betting on the outcome.
#3174 of 3178 The difference in energy quantified by wkand Jun 07, 2001 (01:06 pm)
The GM/Chevy contingent has spent a lot of effort complaining/explaining that due to the fact that the Toyota is lighter than the Chevy, that the Toyota had to absorb/dissipate less energy in the recent crash tests. This is true, but let's take a look at the numbers to see how significant this argument is.
For the sake of fairness, let's figure out what speed the Toyota would have to hit the wall in order to generate the same amount of energy as the Chevy at 40 MPH. Kinetic energy of motion is:
kinetic energy of motion = .5mv^2
If we want equal energy we would have:
.5m1(v1)^2=.5m2(v2)^2
where m1=mass of chevy
m2=mass of toyota
v1=velocity of chevy
v2=velocity of toyota
Solving for the toyota's velocity (v2) we have,
v2=[m1/m2*(v1)^2]^.5
The tested weight of the Chevy was 4709lbfs
The tested weight of the Toyota was 4363lbfs.
The baseline speed of the Chevy was 40 MPH.
The relationship between mass and weight is:
lb=lbf/(acceleration due to gravity). since the equation we are solving includes the ratio of the two masses, it is unnecessary to convert from weight to mass and so the individual weights can be plugged in for m1 and m2.
So we get:
v2=[4709/4363*(40)^2]^.5
v2=41.56 MPH.
So, in order for the tests to have been equal, the Toyota would have to hit the object at 41.56 MPH vs. 40 MPH for the Chevy.
If all of you GMC/Chevy owners out there want to believe that the extra 1.56 MPH would have caused the Toyota to fold like the Buffalo Bills, knock yourselves out.
DISCLAIMER: Studies show that on the average, more lard-butts drive Chevys than do Toyotas. Assuming the restraint system in the Chevy successfully restrains the aforementioned lard-butt in the event of a crash, the true weight of the Chevy would be = curb weight + lbf (lard butt factor). Therefore, Toyota drivers should consider strapping a typical Chevy owner's mother to the hood of their Toyota in order to equalize their chances in the event of an offset collision with a Chevy pickup
The problem was that since the car didn't crumple to absorb most of the energy, the energy went straight to the occupant and hence caused the severe injuries. That's the reason why Formula One or Indy cars nowadays break apart in accidents. This dissipates the dangerous crash energy away from the driver so that the car ends up a heck of a lot worse (usually destroyed) and the driver still walks away.
Drew
Host
Vans, SUVs, and Aftermarket & Accessories message boards
PF Flyer
Host
Pickups & News & Views Message Boards
tests.
Toyota didn't gloat in their response to doing well in this test, but cautioned all not to OVERSIMPLIFY test results. Ford, says strengthening the frame to do well in the offset crash means trading off somewhere else. Does this mean that since Toyota only rec'd a 3-star rating in Govt frontal crash and Ford rec'd 5-star rating, that Toyota engineers were forced to do a "tradeoff"?
None of us have any choice in what type of accident we may experience, be it frontal, offset, side-impact or rear-impact. I'm 52 and have been driving since 1963 when our family car was a 1960 Corvair ("Ralph Nader--Unsafe at any speed"). Manufacturers are light-years ahead today in terms of safety and I'm convinced they're doing the best they can and will only get better with safety-oriented organizations and consumers pressing. Heck, when I drove that Corvair back in 1963 and most cars were unsafe, little did I know I'd be typing in a computer at Edmunds.com 38 years later. Consumers didn't really have any clue about auto safety years ago, like we do today.