Ram pickup leads group of Most Dangerous Cars In America

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Filed under: Truck, Safety, Crossover, Chevrolet, Dodge, Jeep, Mazda, Suzuki


Take a vehicle's Insurance Institute for Highway Safety score, throw it into a data pot that includes Consumer Reports ratings, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration crash safety results and J.D. Power's Initial Quality Study numbers, mix thoroughly, then pour out the most dangerous vehicle on the road today: The Ram pickup truck.

The website 24/7 Wall St. created this analysis to reveal the models with consistent quality problems and poor safety scores. All of the vehicles scored poorly in one area or another in crash testing, typically side or rear impact tests. They all scored badly in rollover testing, except the Jeep Wrangler.

In order, the best of the worst are:

1. Dodge Ram
2. Chevrolet Colorado Super Cab
3. Mazda CX-7
4. Mazda CX-9
5. Nissan Pathfinder
6. Jeep Wrangler
7. Suzuki SX4

And while the data may speak volumes, it doesn't translate into poor sales, 24/7 Wall St. noted. "In fact, sales of all models are up from last year," the site stated.

24/7 Wall St. did not reveal the safest vehicles on the road today using the same data, but all it has to do is turn its list upside down.Ram pickup leads group of Most Dangerous Cars In America originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 30 May 2012 14:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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[Doug_MPS6]

I don't think the Americans have built decent cars or trucks in ages. They all either look like kiddy cars with ghastly interiors (yes, even the Corvette), or are a great grinning mass of fake chrome grill and lights intended to frighten any perceived competition off the road. It's all big car, small willy stuff in the case of the majority of SUV's like this one. Panel fit and alignment is appalling. Instrumentation is ghastly, unreadable and lacking any ergonomic layout. Cup-holders rule. Engineering sophistication is totally lacking. Cubic inches in big lumps of iron still matter and are about as sophisticated as sack full of hammers. To look at a Honda motor which is built like a watch next to a dumb, inefficient, heavy lump of Yank iron is a lesson in itself. Handling, in the main, is as bad as everything else one comes to expect on first approaching the car from outside, with very few exceptions. The new Corvette handling is reputedly good but it is hardly a run-of-the mill car, so it bloody well should be. I have no idea where the designers get their inspiration from, if that is what it can be called. The fact that they continue to produce total crap, and dangerous crap to boot, is still to dawn on them as the reason the Japanese, German and Korean cars have virtually driven them off the road and Detroit to the wall. Long may it continue to happen until some people there in Detroit and other auto manufacturing centres see sense.

[SarcasticOne]

new 5.0 mustangs are supposed to be a damn nice bit of kit...

[bd581]

Horse cart rear suspension out dated by the rest of the world 30 years ago, and they are still poorly put together.
Camaros are as bad.

Had to repair a dodge ram once. Not a great truck, but it did do its job very well. It had been broken into. Even though the attempted thieves had the keys, they still couldn't start it. It took about 1 minute for the computer to work so it would start.

[Jmac]

new 5.0 mustangs are supposed to be a damn nice bit of kit...

The engine, not sure about the rest.
The Miami power plant is awesome. I am a big fan..

[Speed3]

The engine, not sure about the rest.
The Miami power plant is awesome. I am a big fan..

The rest of it is actually awesome. If you pay attention to the performance for new Mustangs, they hammer up there with stuff like BMW M3's.

BMW M3 vs Ford Mustang Boss 302 - FastestLaps.com

[Doug_MPS6]

Most of you miss the point, except bd581. These supposedly "awesome" cars such as Mustangs and the Corvette are not the run of the mill cars that most people drive - they are of the equivalent of $100K plus cars here, or more. And they still have engines big enough to run the Mersey Power Station. No wonder they "go". They'd want to, for the juice they burn. But forget about traction control and getting all that power to the ground, in most cases.

For about 6 decades the Americans have produced totally shitty cars, with awful seating, awful ergonomics, awful design, dreadful instrumentation, such nonsense as foot-operated park brakes, massive inefficient engines, and handling like dinghies in a cyclone.

The original 1964 Mustang was the Yank idea of a sports car! It still had all the above characteristics, but it was a new shape and sold like hot cakes. Yet it still had drum brakes and handled like a barge, when cars like my Alfa Giulia and 2.4-3.8 litre Jaguars had 4 wheel power discs and good handling.

Put any American engine next to the gems turned out by Honda to see what magic the Japanese can do. The little S600 motor in the 70's was built like a watch. When the Camaro came out in 1968 it just another Yank lump, but it sold to Americans and featured on TV drama shows often enough.

Around the same time Citroen came out with the SM, a technical marvel. It died for other reasons, but quality and technology wasn't one of them. Even the wonderful long-running DS25 Pallas Series was revolutionary against the Yank iron. No brake pedal, just a button, did crash stops tail down, had headlights that looked around corners, self-leveling and self-jacking suspension, fantastic vision due to thin pillar designs and an armchair ride.

In 1968, Nissan homologated the new Gerhard Goetze designed Silvia for rallying. It was a true sports car, beautiful to look at, compact, 4 wheel discs, and massively overbuilt in every department, even including such rarely thought of areas as the starter motor bearings. They run forever and are a dream to drive. Equivalent Yank cars (there aren't any, really) have long prior rusted away.

I got picked up yesterday in a brand new baby Chev Aveo, like a Corsair. Fine around town but 100% total crap. A Hyundai i30 runs rings around it for quality. Panel fit was horrible, with over 3mm of height difference between the boot lid and the winds, on both sides. Inside was dreadful in almost every respect and it is hard to know where to begin. I won't.

The American love their pickups but the most popular pickup ever, globally, is the Toyota Hilux which has proven over and over to be all but indestructible. Over 13 million have been sold in the 45 year life of the marque, and it just keeps getting better. I looked at a Chevy S-10 ute today which we are considering buying as it is cheaper than the Hiluxes we are using. But while the specs look good, and it is as close as Chev can get to copying the Hilux (everyone wants a slice of the Hilux pie), it has no bash plates underneath and the e-controller and related wiring for the turbo waste-gate is right next to (i.e. 3mm from) the manifold, so it will fry the unit in nothing flat.

In my job here, I drive a Hilux every day in Andean mountain conditions (i.e. virtually no roads, or blocky ones, at over 12,000' altitude) that would kill every other non Toyota 4WD I know and it just keeps on going, mostly not getting out of low 2nd. Reaching low 4th on a flat or smooth bit is a luxury. I didn't even like the earlier Hiluxes but time has proven them the undisputed king. The new 3.0D turbo is one tough mother. Every day I encounter conditions where I expect to break something, an axle, a suspension arm, a diff, but nothing ever breaks.

Don't believe the VW Amarok and "Dakar Rallye" advertising blurb. Amaroks die like flies here in this kind of work and are overpriced to boot. It is Toyota 2.5Ds that are used to set the Dakar Rally route, by the way.

Mitsi Tritons hang together pretty well but not as well as the Hiluxes. Ford 100 utes are kept in the valleys as farm hacks but won't get out of their own road when it gets tough. I know after 1 hour looking over the Chevy S-10 that it won't hack it where I am.

I can't think of a truly great American car more recent than the 50's. American cars stopped being good when all the great marks like Packard, Hudson, Cadillac, Dodge, Chrysler got soaked up by the Big Three. There was some good in that economically but it didn't make for great cars. Thank US feather-bedded unions for it too, in part.

The attached photo is on a "flat" bit of road at 12,000'. This is a 2.5 litre turbo-diesel version of the Hilux. Just as tough as the 3.0TD, if not tougher. The end of the road too. I have to back up 300m from here to a turn bay. It is over 1000' down into the valley on the left. No stops on the way down if you screw it up. I drive this surface every day for 16 km, 90% of it in low 2nd. Might look hot. It's not - it's about -5C.

[bd581]

Had an S600. Jewel of an engine is an understatement. when most American motors would struggle to pull 5,000 rpm the little Honda was pulling 12,000rpm with all alloy motor, quad crabs, twin cam, roller bearing crank. Until the BMW M3 of the 80's it held the most power per litre of any naturally asperted engine in production.

To compare a current mustang (as it has been used as an example already) to the Germans cars, M3 C63 etc is laughable. The mustang has the grunt, yes, but needs 100kw more to get it close. Then if you show it something called a corner its game over mustang.
And then when it comes down to what really matters, driving it around normally and having to live with it, the mustang (any American car basically) is just rubbish. Panel gaps, fit and finish, quality etc, even the aussies can (and are) teaching them a thing or two.
Too many people are attracted to bright lights, loud noise and shiny things. These are the people who don't understand the difference between quality and looking good. And these are the people cars like the mustang and challenger and the camaro are aimed at.

I've been lucky enough to have driven a lot if old cars, and a lot of new cars. And right from the beginning of cars, America has been a long way behind the rest of the world. All they have ever been good at is self promotion and making people believe their crap

[kmh001]

I always enjoy your posts Doug: "sophisticated as a sack full of hammers" "handling like dinghies in a cyclone". Classic!!

Wonder if a touch of hypoxia adds to colourful expression?

[Caffeine Fiend]

Great post Doug. A good read

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

[Doug_MPS6]

Thanks guys. Good to hear from you Mal.

It occurred to me to post a picture of the little known Nissan Silvia I referred to. The name has been stuck on a few of the later Nissans too, but this is the original. It is a truly great car. Worth the solid money you have to pay to get one second hand.

And then I thought I would show those who don't know or forgot what Citroen were doing, with the DS23 Pallas and the Maserati V6-powered SM. Just for interest. Both of these were great too. I had the former (DS23 5-speed injected Pallas) for two years and loved it to bits. I only sold it because it was hard to get the hydro-pneumatic suspension serviced in Perth at the time.

Without doubt the most comfortable car I've ever driven, and that is an awful lot of cars that I couldn't begin to count. It had huge legs that just devoured continents. I drove it from Perth to Leinster in the rain once, a 10-12 hour journey for most cars, 12 in the 4WDs of the time. I did in in 7.50 hours flat, door to door.

Some police stopped me, or rather I stopped for them, at one stage north of Menzies but were so intrigued at the fact that I had in quite relaxed fashion outrun them, being largely unaware of their existence behind me for about 50km due to road spray, they just oggled the car and tried to figure how their Commode Door was overheating and cornering on its door handles in the rain while this odd French car just floated along at over 180kmh as if bumps and corners didn't exist - with the wipers off most of the time, BTW, as the air-flow design was so good the rain just parted around the car windscreen. It had a fibre-glass roof that reduced top weight and super thin pillars that gave one the feeling of driving in a gold-fish bowl, with great visibility. I still don't know how the French did it.

Thought I'd add the Honda S600 engine too.

Anyway, here y' go.....

[bd581]

The Citroën was such a beautiful car the the typically quirky French style. And a car in my opinion is yet to be matched in terms of a combination of ride, handling, performance. Cars now seem to be only able to achieve any combination of 2 of those 3.

The S600 I miss, dad sold it and bought a Austin healey sprite. The S600 now lives in WA. The straight line performance of the sprite is a lot better, but then it does have a highly modified engine of twice the S600's size. But stock vs stock, the sprite has nothing on the Honda. Alloy chain drive swing arm independent rear suspension. I have never driven anything that turns so well. The chain drive also gave the benefit of torque multiplication.

And yet for such a tiny car, amazingly roomy. Our car clubs resident American car nut sat in it and found it more comfortable than his '63 Ford Thunderbird.

Which brings me back to American cars.
Their theory on everything is bigger is better.
No room inside, make the car bigger.
Suspension not comfy enough, fit bigger seats.
Cars not strong enough, use thicker steel.
Cars too heavy, fit a bigger motor.

Over in the rest of the world (yes there are other countries america)
If a car is too heavy design a new composite that's lighter
Cars not strong enough, design a new high strength steel and redesign the car with strategicly placed swages, and the new high strength steels and composites
Cars not fast enough, redesign it and improve the aerodynamics.

Then after all that is done, America will pronounce it wrong, or change the name, claim it as their own and promote it so well everyone will believe them.

[03blk]

So the CX7 and CX9 are listed as pretty high on the poor build quality
List in the original post here.

It that truly the case? Are these 2 cars really that bad? I always thought they were pretty well built cars.

Any thoughts on this?

[Doug_MPS6]

I'd disagree. The build quality on both of them is generally regarded as excellent. I have some concerns about that table actually - it simply doesn't make any sense. Incidentally the table also appears to lean more towards crash test outcomes rather than build quality, although that does seem to form some part of the as yet unknown comparative algorithm.