We have all heard that Explorers are liable to rollovers, but one of my students has found an important article on the Environmental Working Group Website. Here is the link to the article:
http://www.ewg.org/reports/upsidedown/index.php

 

I'll probably regret starting this...
An environmental group has "news" about a 22 year old vehicle (that has been redesigned 3 times since), and uses excerpts from an engineer, who was clearly mischaracterized, as in, talking about the safety of an outrigger that failed in a test, and not the vehicle. The group states that ~3800 people over 25 years (roughly 6,000,000 vehicles if you combine Explorer and Bronco II) have died in these "deathtraps". Just doing rough math, I'm figuring that I have a 1 in 2000 chance of being killed in my Explorer. I'm thinking that these aren't too bad of odds. We have a 1 in 300 chance that an asteroid is going to obliterate a large portion of the earth in 2029. Maybe Explorers are responsible for that too!
I also love the illusion the EWG is still under with stating that SUVs are unsafe. A myth that has been debunked several times by different groups, especially a NHTSA investigation showing that SUV/econo-car crashes have the SUV as THE safe vehicle, and SUV/SUV collisions as being no more devastating than a car on car collision. Guess what? If you drive a high center of gravity vehicle like its a Porsche, your probability of rolling over grows exponentially. People that drive stupid, and suffer the ultimate fate, are just another example of nature thinning the herd.
I'm sure that no malice is intended by an environmental group (funded by the Tides Foundation - a junk science leaning organization)towards SUVs, any more than Sara Brady dislikes handguns...
Thanks go to your student for sharing this article.

 

RonnieB, I agree wholeheartedly!

The junk-science types/left leaning types (not trying to be political here, so hang with me) believe in Darwinism and evolution (I do in some cases with evolution...) and only that, so when we have examples of "survival of the fittest" type natural selection, they cry and I have to call for the WHAAAAMBULANCE! They can't have it both ways.

It's bad enough that the Explosion, er, Excursion has been all but blamed for the last end of the Ice Age....just wait.

 

bunch of left leaning liberal tree huggers got nothing better to do. Bring one of em over, if they don't do in a rollover when I take em off roading they'll wish they had. Lots of open land in alaska LOL

 

i rolled my x two weeks ago and no one was hurt........... ok just the bark of a tree, but thats all!!!

 

I have located some new wheels. They are 16" x 8" Cobra alloys made in Germany. They have a zero offset (the standard Ford 16" x 7" wheels have a 1" offset). This would give an increase in track of 2". Would this make my Explorer more resistant to rollover?

 

sure it increases the surface area that is contacting the road and wider is better you will loose gas mileage and its not designed for those wheels so ford would right you off if there was an accident

 

The increased offset will add stress to your wheel ends. I don't know how much you'll lessen bearing life, but it will be significant.

 

These hug a tree types have alway ticked me off. I've owned 4 Bronco II's (the last one we just recently traded off with 275,000 miles) 2 Explorers, 1 78 Bronco and now an Excape and a Excursion. I've never once come close to turning one over, and I have a lead foot! Now my aunt was in a rollover accident in a bronco II, But she was T-boned by a kid that ran a stop sign and was doing close to 90 mph!

And it's not just the SUV's they're after. Just a few years ago I had to sign a statement on our 15 passanger E350 van that we would remove the rear seat permantly, not carry any luggage or anything else behind the rear axle line and that we wouldn't carry over 8 passangers plus driver. This is our church van, sort of makes it useless! A lot of insurance companys are talking about dropping insurance on the 15 passanger vans. I feel most of the accidents (rollovers) we've heard about in the 15 passanger vans were due to unexperienced drivers not knowing how to handle a vehicle like this. You take a person that all they ever drive is a sedan and put them driving a loaded van with no training. Then they get into a situation that requires evasive manuvers, yea they are going to wreck. But this is the fault of the organization not providing trained drivers, not the vehicle.

I'll get off my soap box now.

Delos

 

A little off topic but...

I went to U-Haul (Canada) to rent a car dolly and they said that their policy was not to rent trailers and dolly's to Explorer owners due to the tire issues and "bad press" back in the late 90's. I indicated I drove on Michelin tires. "Too bad, that's our policy" was the reply.

How is that for SUV paranoia!!

I drove on the old (un-named company) tires and had a high speed blowout and managed not to wreck. Talent or luck?

Some of these "safety" guys are really out there.

Someone should tell these folks to try driving in a safer manner, you'll stay alive longer regardless of your vehicle.