Wheels: Insurance Group Says Toyota Crams for a Test, but the RAV4 Still Fails

Insurance Institute for Highway Safety The insurance organization says the dummy’s position in relation to the door frame, steering wheel and instrument panel after the crash test of the Toyota RAV4 indicates that the driver’s survival space was not maintained well.

When the results of the new small overlap crash tests conducted by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety on 13 compact crossovers and S.U.V.’s were released in May, the group said the new 2013 Toyota RAV4 was missing from the tests because the automaker wanted time to make improvements.

So, according to the insurance group, Toyota made its changes, but in June when the new test was finally conducted, the RAV4 still failed. It got the lowest rating, Poor, in the overlap test.

Toyota had made changes to models built after April to better control the stability of the steering column and to provide extra padding under the footwell carpeting, according to a statement from the insurance group, which is funded by the insurance industry. RAV4s before that date do not have these improvements.

Still, those changes did not do enough to address a combination of poor structure and inadequate control of the test dummy’s movement, resulting in the Poor rating in the overlap test, the group’s newest, most severe frontal crash test.

In the RAV4, the dummy’s left foot “was trapped by crushed and buckled sheet metal in the footwell,” which indicated there was a high risk of injuries to the left lower leg in a crash this severe.
The dummy’s head hit the instrument panel. According to the test details, “the dummy’s head barely contacted the frontal air bag before sliding off the left side as the steering column moved” more than 7 inches to the right, resulting in little air bag cushioning for the chest.

Additionally, the safety belt allowed “excessive” forward movement of the dummy’s head and torso, which contributed to the dummy hitting the instrument panel.

“There is just no good reason that the head should be allowed to get so far forward,” said David Zuby, the group’s chief research officer.

Nonetheless, the group said the RAV4’s overall performance was good.

“The overall safety of the RAV4 is quite high,” as indicated by a Good rating in the institute’s other crash tests and its designation as a Top Safety Pick, Mr. Zuby said. “But we are trying to push crashworthiness even further than what’s represented by today’s Top Safety Pick. And with regard to the small overlap crash test, the RAV4 falls short.”

Toyota refused to confirm that it asked the insurance group to hold off on the small overlap crash test while it made improvements to the RAV4 or to answer questions about what changes it made and why they were unsuccessful.

In an e-mail statement, the company said, “The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (I.I.H.S.) periodically develops new, more severe or specialized tests that go beyond federal requirements. With the small overlap test, the institute has raised the bar again, and we are responding to the challenge. We are looking at a range of solutions to achieve greater crash performance in this area. Although the Toyota RAV4 did not achieve the I.I.H.S. “Top Safety Pick +” (Plus) rating, it remains an I.I.H.S. Top Safety Pick.”

A vehicle can be a Top Safety Pick if it gets a Good rating in the group’s four other crash tests, regardless of how it performs in the small overlap test. To receive the highest distinction of a Top Safety Pick+, the vehicle must receive Good ratings in at least four of the group’s tests and no less than an Acceptable in the fifth.

“The message to consumers is, if you want the very safest vehicles look for a Top Safety Pick+,” Mr. Zuby said. “But you don’t have to really worry if you are driving around in a Top Safety Pick because those vehicles have a very high level of safety. The message to Toyota is, if you want to remain on the I.I.H.S. list of safest cars, you have work to do on the small overlap crash test.”

Mr. Zuby said that despite advances in crash safety, people are still dying and being seriously injured in frontal crashes. And small overlap crashes account for about 25 percent of those fatalities and injuries.

The RAV4 was not the only small crossover to have difficulty with the new test. In May, when the insurance group released the small overlap test results for the other small crossovers, only the Subaru Forester received a rating of Good. The Mitsubishi Outlander Sport earned an Acceptable rating. Six others were rated Marginal, and five were rated Poor.

The small overlap test was designed to replicate what happens when the front corner of a vehicle collides with another vehicle or an object like a tree or a utility pole. In the test, 25 percent of a vehicle’s front on the driver’s side strikes a 5-foot-tall rigid barrier at 40 miles per hour. Because the edge of the vehicle hits the barrier, it misses the main crush-zone structures in the middle of the vehicle that reduce crash forces on the occupant compartment.

In these impacts, the left front wheel and tire can be forced back into the footwell, resulting in serious, debilitating leg and foot injuries, the group says. Vehicles also tend to rotate and slide sideways. This movement can fling the dummy to the left toward the windshield and front-door pillar. And it can push the steering wheel, which contains the air bag, so far to the right that the air bag offers little protection to the dummy.

Some Toyota and Lexus models had similar problems with structure and restraints in earlier rounds of small overlap tests. The Lexus ES 350 and IS 350/250, and the Toyota Camry and Prius V wagon all received overall ratings of Poor in that test.