I had an Eddie Bauer Explorer. I hit a small curb and the top of the vehicle starting swaying and the vehicle flipped over 3 times. I am very concerned that this instability is very dangerous because once the vehicle becomes unstable it is going to roll over until something stops it. Please relook at the safety of this vehicle. Because it rolled sideways rather than forward, the airbags never deployed. By the way, I did get out of the vehicle, so it held together through the crash.

 

Well, it is a SUV and they will roll over if it hits something such as a curb just right. Actually, you don't even need a curb, just drive at about 45 miles an hour, swerve sharply to the right, then turn the wheel as far to the left as it will go. You'll roll it every time. But then this is true with most other SUVs and many cars as well. Just watched an episode of "World's Most Amazing Videos" on NBC tonight and they showed a brand new BMW 5-series sport wagon roll over during severe maneuvering on a test drive.

 

Well I guess I have a different opinion. My wife and I were on our way from work along a 4 lane hwy when the joker in the fast lane decided they needed to be in my space. Never looked in the mirror and it wasnt a slow move. I swerved to the shoulder, hit the gravel, leaned on the brakes enough to avoid the joker and kept on down the road. all of this doing about 60mph. At no time did I ever feel like the rig was going to roll or I was out of control. Since we only had the explorer for about a month, I was, to say the least, impressed by the way it handled.

My .02 cents.

 

Three things kept your truck from rolling over:



First, you leaned hard on the brakes.



Second, you swerved onto gravel which provides less traction than concrete. This allows the tires to slide rather than grip.



Third, you probably did not swerve back into normal traffic as hard or harder than you did leaving it. The trick to rolling any car or truck is to make the return swerve as hard or harder than the first.



On the first issue, you increased the traction to the two front tires while removing it from the rear two tires. This gave you a positive steering response that allowed your front tires to grip the road harder than normal and pull the front of the truck out from where it was going faster than if you had not done so.



On the second issue, your truck’s tires had less of a grip on the road, they had less of a chance to “dig in” and throw it into a rollover. All you need for a rollover in any vehicle is to have the center of gravity higher than normal, then have the edge of the tires catch the road, just for an instant and it will throw the vehicle over.



On the third issue, when you swerved over, you threw more weight onto the side of the truck away from the direction of the swerve. This also raised the center of gravity on the truck as it rises in about a 45 degree angle from the center in hard maneuvering. If you had swerved just as hard back in the other direction quickly without using the brakes, the center of gravity would have been transferred very quickly from one side of the truck to the other. That alone will usually not cause the rollover, what does is the fact that the center of gravity is still high and doesn’t have time to settle. The momentum of the truck, the swing of the center of gravity and center of weight is what causes the rollover. It isn’t magic, just physics. Any vehicle can be rolled (per the example above of the BMW), but a truck is usually easier to roll because the center of gravity is higher to start with and it has more mass which means that it has more energy at a give speed. The more energy being thrown around, the easier it is to use the high center of gravity against you. This is also why trucks can be rolled at slower speeds than most cars.



Jason

 

Jasons' laws of physics just about explains it all!!

 

You may be happy to know, I was not because I own a 2000 Explorer XLS, that Ford is planning to offer a rollover sensor that detects when the vehicle is about to rollover and deploys side curtain airbags a fraction of a second before the point of no return they are designed to absorb the shock, cushion and protect the occupants. Ford will be the first to offer such a feature and it should be offered on all 2001 Ford SUV's I found this out 3 days after i bought mine, if I had known I would have bought a 2001, I guess it's true what they say about hindsite being 20/20

 

98 F-150 XLT,245 70 yokahama AVS/ST's
prarie tan w/tan int.
K/N gen.II fipk
B/M electronic shift improver
COBRA 75 remote mount CB with weather
alert
SNUGTOP LID/body color
4.6 litre V-8
Dual exhaust/rear exiting/Gibson
rectangle tips
Slowly but surely losing the chrome
front end,in favor of body color steel
bumper with no rub strip. body color
grille shell and speed grilles for both
pieces, painted black or metallic dark
brown. custom body work and paint to
follow

I would be worried that this is a necessary option
on any vehicle. I mean how ridiculous can you get,
an airbag to protect you from your own vehicles'
handling faults! I think it would be cheaper for
them to develop a vehicle that would not roll over
so easily. Given the driving habits of some people
who own these particular trucks,it frightens me to
get on the road sometimes. I know!!,how about wheels that come out of the sides to keep them from
rolling over,you know like training wheels. Sorry
if this seems mean-spirited,I just find the idea of
a rollover airbag extremely funny.

 

Rollover bags are in the 2002 Explorer, not 2001.

Ken Payne
Ford Truck Enthusiasts Admin
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