Yourlawyer.com (Mitsubishi Montero Rollover News) http://www.yourlawyer.com/topics/overview/mitsubishi_montero_rollover Sat, 21 Nov 2009 01:59:32 -0800 pixel-app en SUVs Rank Lowest In Rollover Ratings http://www.yourlawyer.com/articles/read/10953 Tue, 10 Aug 2004 00:00:00 -0700 http://www.yourlawyer.com/articles/read/10953
Until now, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has provided a five-star rating system that was criticized by safety advocates because it sometimes gave better scores to vehicles that tip during a road test than those that stayed on all four tires.

The new government information indicates how likely on a percentage basis a vehicle is to roll over in a single-vehicle crash.

Among 2004 models the agency tested, the five-star Mazda RX-8 four-door sedan has an 8 percent chance of rolling over the lowest of all vehicles tested.

The two-star Ford Explorer Sport Trac 4x2 sport utility vehicle has a 34.8 percent chance of rolling over in a single vehicle crash, the agency said.

A slew of the most popular Detroit-made SUVs were also near the bottom of the ratings, including the 4x2 versions of the Mercury Mountaineer, Ford Explorer, GMC Yukon and Chevy Tahoe. All of the SUVs have a 28 percent chance of rolling over in a single vehicle accident.

On the whole, SUVs were significantly more rollover prone than cars and minivans.

The agency awards five stars to vehicles that roll over 10 percent of the time or less, and one star to vehicles that roll over between 40 and 50 percent of the time.

“We believe we can accomplish a lot with consumer information,” NHTSA Administrator Jeffrey Runge said at a press conference. “If no one buys vehicles prone to roll over, manufacturers will stop making them.”

The new information also will give car buyers a gauge of how well a vehicle stacks up against models in the same class, such as minivans, SUVs or pickup trucks.

Though rollover crashes only represent about 3 percent of accidents, they account for more than 10,000 death,  a third of annual highway fatalities.

Automakers support the agency’s move to provide more consumer information, but caution shoppers not to put too much weight on one measurement.

A vehicle’s stability can be influenced by an array of factors, such as height, the width between tires, the design of its suspension system, tire grip, the location of the engine mount and even the weight of its sunroof, NHTSA engineers say. About 75 percent of passengers who die in a rollover accident also aren’t belted, government data shows.

Also, while having several passengers can make a low-riding sedan even more stable, high-riding sport utility vehicles become even more unstable with extra people, said R. David Pittle, senior vice president of technical policy at Consumers Union, publisher of Consumer Reports magazine.

“Rather than understand it, the important thing for consumers to know is there is a test devised by the government” to measure it, said Pittle, who thinks the road test is a “very good indicator of vehicle safety.”

“We will never recommend a vehicle that has failed this test,” added Pittle, who considers a vehicle that tips off two tires a failure. “There are too many safer alternatives.”

NHTSA uses three sets of tests and information to compute the scores. It uses real-world accident data, a calculation that essentially measures center of gravity, and a dynamic test maneuver whereby a vehicle is quickly turned one way and then sharply the other way.

That so-called “fishhook” test, unveiled in October, is supported by safety advocates but they believe NHTSA should give more weight to the test results, particularly whether a vehicle “tipped” or not.

For example, the Toyota Tacoma 4x2 extended cab pickup truck got the second highest rating, four stars, even though it tipped during the test.

General Motors Corp. and Ford Motor Co. said NHTSA’s moving rollover test is extremely severe and leads to only 5 percent of all actual rollovers. In real-world driving situations, most vehicles are stable and resist rollover, GM and Ford say.

“It’s very difficult to rate an automobile like you rate a movie, because whenever you summarize information you always lose something,” said Gloria Bergquist, vice president of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, a trade group that represents Detroit and other automakers. “We encourage consumers to become very informed about many different aspects of their vehicle, not to just look at one star rating or another.”

Ford Motor Co. spokeswoman Kristen Kinley said the ratings have some value, but the automaker doesn’t think they are an accurate reflection of real-world crash statistics.

“It’s an estimate of risk, but it’s not a prediction of a likelihood of a crash,” Kinley said.

To enhance safety of SUVs, which are more prone to roll over, some automakers are already installing electronic stability technology, which senses when a vehicle starts to tip and automatically slows it down.

Such systems come standard on several General Motors Corp. vehicles, including the Cadillac Escalade and the GMC Denali, said GM spokesman Chris Preuss.

Ford announced last month that it will equip its best-selling Ford Explorer and three other sport utility vehicles with standard anti-rollover technology, beginning with 2005 models.

A former NHTSA administrator said automakers ought to be forced to demonstrate their vehicles’ safety.
]]> Mitsubishi Montero Fails 'Consumer Reports' Test http://www.yourlawyer.com/articles/read/8144 Thu, 21 Jun 2001 00:00:00 -0700 http://www.yourlawyer.com/articles/read/8144
It is just the third time the magazine has handed out its lowest rating for a vehicle.

Mitsubishi was quick to challenge the testing methods used by Consumers Union, which publishes the magazine, and says it has no reports of rollover crashes with the Montero.

The test involves running the vehicle through a slalom course at varying speeds, the driver steering left, right, then left again on a short course to mimic the driving one might have to do to avoid an unexpected road hazard

Consumer Reports says two wheels came off the ground eight out of nine times the Montero went through the course at 37 mph or higher.

Pierre Gagnon, president of Mitsubishi Motors, the company's U.S. division, said Consumers Union's testing does not reflect "real-world" driving conditions. Consumers Union "forced an outcome that misrepresents the safety of our vehicle," he said.

Mitsubishi is instructing dealers to describe Consumer Reports' tests as "unreliable and unscientific." Gagnon says neither Mitsubishi nor the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has any reports of Montero rollover accidents.]]> Mitsubishi SUV 'Unsafe' http://www.yourlawyer.com/articles/read/8145 Wed, 20 Jun 2001 00:00:00 -0700 http://www.yourlawyer.com/articles/read/8145
The magazine published by Consumers Union said the problem was discovered in emergency avoidance-maneuver tests. It said the tests last month showed the Montero Limited tipped up on two wheels in eight out of nine runs at 36.7 miles per hour or faster. It said it conducted tests on two different Montero Limiteds which had been built 10 months apart from one another.

"Tipping up severely, we believe, demonstrates unsafe performance," the magazine's article said.

It marks only the third SUV model out of 118 vehicles tested during the last 13 years to fail the test. The others were the Suzuki Samurai in 1988 and the Isuzu Trooper along with its twin Acura SLX in 1996.

Mitsubishi defends vehicle safety

The U.S. arm of Mitsubishi Motors said it is confident that the vehicle is safe and that the tests used by Consumers Union are unrealistic. It said it has no record of rollover accidents involving the vehicle, and that additional tests it had conducted by an independent testing firm since it was informed of the CU results had validated its findings that the vehicle is safe.

In the real world, this vehicle's performance has been outstanding," said a statement from Pierre Gagnon, president of Mitsubishi Motor Sales of America. "We are disappointed that Consumers Union chose to attack our vehicle despite overwhelming evidence that their conclusions are wrong."

The automaker said that the validity of the CU tests has been criticized by government safety experts and the tests do not depict a maneuver that would be needed by drivers in a real-world setting. It called the CU test a "staged" rollover.

But Consumers Union stood by its results, saying they raised a serious safety risk to vehicle owners. It provided a video of one of the tests showing all four wheels leaving the ground and the vehicle tipping up on the safety bars installed along the bottom of the vehicle for purposes of the tests.

"On the same day, on the same course with the same drivers, we tested six other similarly-sized SUVs and none of them exhibited any problems with tip-ups," said a statement from R. David Pittle, senior vice president and technical director of Consumers Union. "We believe that a vehicle that tips up severely in our tests is exhibiting dangerous behavior."

The article that the publication prepared for readers said it had been prepared to give the vehicle a mostly positive rating, and that it could have been one of the higher-rated models of its group of SUVs being compared. Its description of the Montero in its 2001 annual auto ratings issue included the description: "Routine handling is sound if unexceptional and the ride is compliant and well controlled."

The safety rating does not apply to the more popular Montero Sport, which Consumer Reports agrees is a very different vehicle despite the similar name. It tested an earlier model of the Montero Sport using the same emergency avoidance maneuver test and it passed, although the magazine did not recommend the vehicle because of its reliability record.

Jennifer Shecter, a spokeswoman for the magazine, said the Montero Sport has been redesigned since that earlier test and that Consumer Reports could not comment on the safety or chance of a rollover in the current models.

In past years, Consumer Reports faced lawsuits from automakers after it said models weren't safe. Suzuki's defamation suit against the magazine's publisher was thrown out, and it was cleared of any liability by the jury that heard the Isuzu case. But according to published reports, the jury found some of the charges in Consumer Reports' Trooper article were incorrect and wanted to award damages of as much as $25 million, but didn't because it "couldn't find clear and convincing evidence that Consumer Union intentionally set out to trash the Trooper."

Problems at Mitsubishi

German automaker DaimlerChrysler AG (DCX: up $0.16 to $43.42, Research, Estimates) took a controlling minority stake in the Japanese automaker last year. But the rescue of Japan's fourth-largest automaker is still far from certain as Mitsubishi Motors grapples with cutting costs and trying to return to profitability.

It also had to deal with a scandal in which it acknowledged it hid customer complaints from Japan's Transport Ministry over the course of more than two decades. The deception led to the recall of hundreds of thousands of vehicles, the resignation of the company's president and tighter controls of the company by DaimlerChrysler.

The Montero is a one of a number of relatively new SUV offerings from Japanese automakers that have eaten into the market share of U.S. automakers in this key segment in recent years.

For the first five months of the year, Mitsubishi has sold 8,804 Monteros, up 71 percent from the same period of 2000, and 24,392 Montero Sports, off 12.4 percent from the previous year. Those combined sales are about level with the year earlier period and represent about one-half percent of all U.S. vehicles sold during the period and 2.2 percent of all SUVs.

Sport/utility vehicles have a higher center of gravity than cars and other light trucks and are at greater risk of a rollover accident, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. But it has yet to release rollover ratings for the Montero.

Consumer Reports said, for those who have already purchased the vehicle, it would advise them to wear safety belts at all times, drive with caution and not carry any cargo on top of the vehicle. Most fatalities in rollover accidents result from being thrown from the vehicle, according to NHTSA.

Consumer Reports said it also is important that Montero drivers leave extra space between the SUV and other vehicles to give themselves more time to react without the need for sharp turns. ]]> Mitsubishi Montero Rollover Lawsuit SUV Accident Lawyer http://www.yourlawyer.com/topics/overview/mitsubishi_montero_rollover Wed, 20 Jun 2001 00:00:00 -0700 http://www.yourlawyer.com/topics/overview/mitsubishi_montero_rollover

Mitsubishi Montero Rollover

The Mitsubishi Montero has been at the center of the rated the Mitsubishi Montero Limited "Not Acceptable" after it tipped up severely on two wheels during emergency avoidance-maneuver tests. None of the other six vehicles being tested tipped up during the tests. Ironically even though the Mitsubishi Montero is designed for off road use on rough terrain, the Montero does not have rollbars. Furthermore, the Mitsubishi Montero, like other SUV's does not have to meet the National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration roof safety standards for automobiles making this a very dangerous vehicle.

Mitsubishi Monteros rollover because of the absence of a lower center of gravity and a wider wheel base. A lower center of gravity and wide wheel base allows automobiles to skid, spin and recover.

The flimsy roof design of the Mitsubishi Montero has resulted in severe injuries and deaths in rollover accidents. The roof is by far the flimsiest part of Mitsubishi Montero. The flimsy roof combined with the Montero's tendency to tip lead Consumer Reports issue a warning about the Montero.

"If you're shopping for an SUV, we advise you not to buy the 2001 Montero Limited until this safety problem has been corrected. In our opinion, there are safer choices." Additionally Consumer Reports stated that Mitsubishi should issue a recall and improve the vehicle's stability. This would follow the example set in 1997 by Daimler-Benz (now DaimlerChrysler, which owns a 37.3 percent stake of Mitsubishi Motors Corporation), when that company recalled and corrected the Mercedes-Benz A-Class after it rolled over in similar tests conducted by a Swedish automotive magazine.

There are also allegations in Japan that the government it was looking at criminal charges against Mitsubishi Motors Corp. after the firm admitted to covering up customer complaints about defective vehicles for decades.

If you or a loved have been injured in a Mitsubishi Montero Rollover, please fill out the form at the right for a free case evaluation by a qualified personal injury attorney.]]>