If a new impala can be approved the requirements cant be THAT strict lol.

 

I think you people are looking at this the wrong way. We WANT the government to stop "family planning" info. for young people in school, and we WANT the govt. to stop females from controlling their breeding (after all, dont we need MORE babies..?)

Well, since the world has too many people, why not COMMEND Ford for its efforts down thru the years, to help with over-population. The SAE/ASTM standards (there have been industry standards for fuel tanks since before World War ONE, but why be mad at Ford for having a little fun..) for fuel tanks and their placement are no fun at all. Just look at the tradition..thought that went thru Ford's corporate mind in putting the gasoline tanks in the Model "A" right over your lap behind the dash-board.

In later years, Ford wasnt the only one - some GMC "corporate" pick-up trucks also have fuel tank placement and struture designed to help out on the over-population problem.

Now you guys are picking on poor Ford for trying to help out with roll-overs. How unfair to accuse Ford of not knowing that SUV-type vehicles are MUCH more subject to roll-over than standard vehicles. And how nice of Ford to try and save a few bucks and maybe 30 lbs. of metal per car. Most of those people who loose their heads in Ford product roll-overs dont need their heads anyway.

We need to get the government out of our lives, so more auto makers can quit their silly safety standards, and make neato population-reducing products like Ford does. And while we are at it, let's "ban" those damn fool Japanese, German, and Swedish cars, with their design priorities that add to global warming by not reducing the population.

 

All I want is a lil thicker metal in the A pillars and a good way to distribute the weight it should then be able to hold through the chassis so it wont collapse. Shouldnt be that hard with all the fancy high priced engineers. Honestly, it was probably the bean counters that caused this. They seem to be behind all the stop BS problems.

 

Seems you should be able to buy or fabricate a roll bar for the Ex if you're really concerned about being crushed in a rollover.

 

I disagree with your premise that it is the consumer's duty to figure out what is wrong with a manufactured product, and try, on his own, to come up with a properly engineered solution.

Yeah, I know the "Rush Limbaugh" types and their chant "get government out of our lives". Because I know what they REALLY mean - we WANT to be able to con you out of your money by producing the cheapest crap we can. It is that simple. Pure greed and mean-spirited thoughtless-ness.

True, human nature can be destructive, and thus many people go into government just for the fun of making someone else miserable. The pure genius of our founding fathers is they recognized that, and designed a system of checks and balances, so that hopefully, nobody can get TOO far out of line.

True, government, in the guise of "safety agencies", has come up with some pretty whacky counter-productive nonsense. And true, private agencies like the S.A.E. has come up with some basic safety standards.

However, the failure/refusal of FORD corporate thinking to comply with basic private safety standards (fuel storage on motor vehicles is one glaring example) shows us MANDATORY GOVERNMENT safety standards are a good excercise of government power.

In my view, many others on this forum, and, obviously, "after-market" sources, have come to the conclusion that a heavily loaded EX, the way they came out of the factory, is inadequate at best, probably dangerous both to its own occupants and the public in general. Once "tamed" with some method of riding level, and some form of rear sway control, and the EX becomes equal to the purposes it was REPRESENTED by the manufacturer to be good for.

I am not competent to know how much extra steel would be needed in the upper body structure to protect against a roll-over. In my above post, I made a wild guess of a few pounds and a few dollars. I sure as heck am not competent to go designing structural changes. That is the MANUFACTURER's responsibility in a civil society.

 

Not sure how you decided that's my "premise." It's not, but it's a practical work around.

 

O.K...smart guy - kindly tell us how YOU would bring the typical FORD SUV's upper sheet metal up to the kind of "roll-over" standards that, for example, General Motors and Chrysler both featured in a film presentation I saw in 1953 (the films were actually made in the 1930's, in each case, showing how "turret top" GMC "family" cars, (same deal with the Chrysler film) were able to survive roll-overs, protecting the occupants, where as the "other" (obviously a FORD product) collapsed around the dummies.

One particularly dramatic section in the Chrysler flim, had them doing an END OVER END and THEN a roll-over, and then opening a door, getting in, and driving the car away ! And it was no fake ! If recollection serves, it was around a '35 or '36 Chrysler product.

So, when you discuss this "practical" solution, tell us how you would form this "roll cage" to NINETEEN THIRTY FIVE Chrylser or GM tech. standards, out of what material, at what cost. Then tell us how you would "anchor" this roll cage, to what, and with what type of weld or fastner system.

 

I don't know, grumpy old man. But I'm confident that someone does.

 

= = = =
NOW, at last, you are being honest. OF COURSE you "dont know". Neither do I. It isn't our job to know.

In a free country, where manufacturers who CARE about safety, are free to try and develop the best products (under the watchful eye of RESPONSIBLE safety organizations) THEY know.

That's the point I was trying to make. We as consumers have a right to expect RESPONSIBLE products, designed to some minimum safety standard.

There ARE answers to these "product safety" issues, but it isnt our job as CONSUMERS to figure them out - that is what we pay the manufacturer to do!

The sad and rather obvious fact is, down thru its corporate history, while FORD has come up with some neat products, it has a demonstrateable history (yeah. I agree..."bean counters" with NO sense of responsibility) of contemptable disregard for product safety.

ONE of the many ways to get manufacturers to understand their responsibility to consumers, is sue the pants off them when they screw up.

I am not competent to know how to design a collision resistant fuel storage system, nor how to design roof structures with some degree of resistance to collapse from roll-overs, and YOU are man enough to admit you arent either!

ALL my SUV's have come with warning lables on the sun-visors that these things ARE more subject to roll-over than a normal passenger car. That means I agree with you and some of the other guys in here - we DO have a duty to take this into account. I personally drive my SUV's with the same mind-set as when I drive motorcycles. I DONT go fast, and ASSUME at every intersection SOMEONE wants to run the red light and T bone me (one of the many ways it is easy to "flip" an EX). Hopefully, with a little "defensive driving" we can reduce the possibility of rolling thse things.

So - bottom line - i trust we all agree we LOVE our EX's, and what they can do, and that's why we have em and wont give em up ! But they do have some design issues that to me are just plain rotten !

 

What a bunch of BS.

Those who build crappy products that kill people in our Capitalist society will not be able to sell said crappy product. The market should drive planning and execution of a product, not the government. The government messed up everything it touches. Most mandatory government safety (and emission) regulations have bloated the weight of the American automobile (reducing its fuel efficiency) and has done nothing to make the driver a better driver.

Our trucks are designed to be operated right side up. If the operator puts himself in a position that is contradictory to that design then he is responsible for the outcome.

This truck did not suddenly flip over on its side like you would command you dog to. IT did not paralyze the fella. The operator's action(s) resulted in the injury.

 

I hate to say it Ken, but I kind of agree with Pete on this one. While he's not always the most diplomatic about getting his points across, there certainly are a huge number of cases where government regulation has improved things. If I compare the safety level of today's cars as compared to my '65 Chevy, it's like night and day. No air bags, no energy absorbing steering column, door buttons that will depress and allow the door to come open during a roll over, a steel edged dashboard that will take your head off if you hit something and don't have your seat belt on (and it only came with 2), single master cylinder braking system as well as other things.

Government mandated safety, emissions and fuel mileage standards have resulted in much safer and efficient automobiles that have increased our chances of surviving a major crash. I know of several instances of Saturn automobiles that were in horrific head-on collisions that should have killed everyone in the car. Instead, the folks went to the hospital with non life-threatening injuries.

Remember when the new clean-air standards first went into effect? The 1973 and particularly the 1974 automobiles were real dogs because of the poor performance with all the added emissions controls. Then technology caught up and catalytic converters were added and we started seeing performance increase. BUT, we had cleaner automobiles.

Vehicles keep getting safer and we see more folks surviving bad accidents. But, our big 'ol Excursions were exempted from the CAFE standards and from some of the safety standards because of their weight, size and class. None of us plan to have an accident, that's why they're "accidents". When they happen, we can only hope that there's some measure of protection engineered into the passenger cage of the automobile. The tops of our Excursions are notoriously flimsy and it's extremely easy to dent the top of one by just putting luggage on the rack. It's possible to design a little more structural support in the top to at least support the vehicle in a roll-over and the bean-counters at Ford elected to make the decision that it's cheaper to defend against lawsuits than to build enough safety into the vehicle to protect against a rollover.

By the way, the film that Pete was referring to where a 1930's Chrysler goes off a cliff end over end was a promotional film for the "new" Chrysler Airflow. While it was one of the safest automobiles for its day, the radical styling wasn't accepted by the public and it ended up being a disappointment in sales numbers.

I still feel safe in my Excursion due to the fact that there's more mass that will be in my favor if I'm in a collision with another vehicle, but I pray that I'm never in a situation where I roll it. My previous Suburbans were much safer in this type of accident.

 

How about the poor guy that drives his car into a lake and it sinks? Of course the car was never intended to be driven in water but then again it was never intended to be flipped over either. I know that accidents happen and we have to plan for them.

Here in Florida, more people drive them into the water than flip them over. So why should they be designed for some accidents but not others? My point is when do we start being responsible for our own actions? How much longer can we blame others for our mistakes?

 

Thank God for the Lawyers!!!! .... Kidding.

 

For those of you who are bashing Ford for producing unsafe vehicles, you all need to take the thumb out of the *** and realize that the majority of Ford's current lineup matches if not beats its competition in terms of crash worthiness.

Ford, according to a few has disregarded safety. This is no longer the case. When everybody is talking about Ford's safety record, you all need to make it point in talking about their vehicles of the past, not their current vehicles, since you all make it sound as if even their current offerings are subpar, which is certainly not the case.

6686L, do not know why you picked the RAV4 over the Escape (don't care to be honest) but I'd like to point out that the 2009 Escape has earned top safety pick from the IIHC in the small suv segment while the RAV4 was not a top safety pick. With the NHTSA the Escape earned 5 stars across the board, while the RAV4 did not. What I'm trying to say is that Ford, or for that matter any of the Americans autos are not subpar to any other manufacture of vehicles as you hinted in this quote. "And while we are at it, let's "ban" those damn fool Japanese, German, and Swedish cars, with their design priorities that add to global warming by not reducing the population."

 

I think it's important to also remember that the IIHC doesn't do any type of "roll over" testing whatsoever.