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SUVs Buick Rendezvous Rendezvous Suspension Upgrades
132 messages, Last post on Jan 06, 2008 at 7:26 PM
You are in the Buick Rendezvous Forum. Your Hosts are steve_ & tidester
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"Note to self. Don't go car shopping with Hawaiianguy." well, thanks to forbes I probably will at least "consider" Score when shopping for my next vehicle. Unforunately I only whent by NHSTA and IIHS on my last vehicle purchase.... I think most would agree that if "safety is of utomost importance", it would be nice to be able to find a vehicle where BOTH ratings agree... |
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"My minivan was a new model when we got it - a few months later the front crash test results came out and it did lousy. Lot of foot well incursion. Them's the breaks." You know, I would think MFG's would do their homework on these types of vehicles. If they KNOW their vehicle is going to be used primarily as people transport and for family, then these are the cars which SHOULD BE getting high ratings. The consumer shouldn't have to rely on "caveat emptor" or buyer beware when purchasing a family oriented vehicle. I mean I think there are a LOT of people who probalby just assume if they are buying a people mover or family car, it will be safe. Unfortunately that's not the case right now, which means as a consumer, IF you are buying a family vehicle it's EVEN MORE reason to think along the lines of CAVEAT EMPTOR. You can't just "trust the manufacturers" on this one.. That's where SCORE might be able to help over and above just using the standard IIHS and NHSTA ratings.
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Replying to: hawaiianguy (Oct 02, 2007 12:33 pm) Manufacturers do pay attention to the test results - some say they pay too much attention to getting good scores on the known tests to the detriment of other safety factors (like perhaps those suspension upgrades?). People, to their credit, are including safety higher in their checklist, although many probably care more about HP or the iPod connection or the styling than how well the SUV will do in a rollover. |
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"Manufacturers do pay attention to the test results - some say they pay too much attention to getting good scores on the known tests to the detriment of other safety factors (like perhaps those suspension upgrades?). " Steve, well, even you asserted that "SCORE" has not made that much of a splash in the "real world". So even though mfg's are probably paying attention to IIHS and NHSTA test results, they may not necessarily be paying attention to SCORE. If score is a pretty good indicator of fatality, it again goes to my original assertion that a safe vehicle should be able to pass ALL the different rating methodology, including IIHS, NHSTA and SCORE. If mfg's are preemptively looking only at the 1st 2, my thinking is they still are not covering all the potential bases... But then again, FORBES did present the mfg's with the results and they did have a response. So I'm not sure if they will start paying "more" attention to SCORE from now on as well..? |
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. So what they are doing is just telling you that they think that the SCORE number is a good "predictor" of an automotive fatality. ---------------- NO. One has to look "past the score" and determine the true "Root Cause" analysis. This is something that many "stat collectors" fail to do. They pump out the number "as is" (which is proven by output patterns) until the cows come home but in the end, they do NOT state why. They are stating "the what" but fail to state "the why", "the when" and how to prevent this pattern under the same test conditions. OK - let's assume "the pattern" shows a high number of rear end crashes involving a specific brand of vehicle. For conversation reasons, let's call it "a Mustang". An author states "The Mustang is the worst vehcile for driving into something". The mustang is constantly driving into a tree, a car infront of them and even a School bus (which always gets immediate media attention). From a stats or "pattern" perspective, one can state that a Mustang (as an example vehicle) has a high rate of head on collisions. What fails in many "stat / review" studies is the reason why. Why is a Mustang (again, as an example) have such high scores? Is it because their front disc brakes are failing and Ford should do a re-call? Is it because their factory front tires aren't gripping the road properly (which creates the skid into another object condition. Or, is it because the mustang is a Sports car and "stats is showing" majority of these collisions is from age 18-25 year old boys. Thus, showing these "young men" are driving the vehicle too fast in the first place. And, there is nothing wrong with the vehicle's design or road condition. A safety state may show the musttang scored 3 out of 5 in an accident. But from a root cause analysis perspective (taking a stats job one step further) might show its really "the people's style" who are driving it too fast. This is the true problem with the Mustang (as a vehicle example) design. What is the Root Cause of that stat??? Always remember that "a number is a number". Without details of When, Where and Why (with how to prevent it), I dimss the artical. As some would say, "without the meat, eating the lettice isn't worth chewing on".... If someone yelled that a Mustang has high roll over numbers, what would I do??? Before uprading its front shocks, installing HD springs or even installing an internal roll bar, I'd ask "what is the root cause????". If someone yells fire at a gas station, show me where and why. And if possible, show me the "how to prevent" in the future. Sounds like common sense questions to me... . |
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"They are stating "the what" but fail to state "the why", "the when" and how to prevent this pattern under the same test conditions." Obviously if they are just crunching numbers, they are NOT looking at the WHY of things. Probably the base data that they are using does not give the WHY. So in order to find the WHY, they'd have to do their own detailed investigation and analysis of every single number used in their analysis. This is something that would be highly TIME CONSUMING AND COSTLY. All they are trying to do is take the NHSTA and IIHS data (which doesn't always have the WHY to begin with), and using that as a baseline. Let me ask you thins, do you think when NHSTA gives a rollover rating of 3 out of 5 stars, they tell you the WHY? I may be wrong, but I don't think so. If this was the case you could read the NHSTA reports and figure out a way to correct it if they told you the WHY. If NHSTA and IIHS is not even including the WHY, how can you expect SCORE to do so when their results are dependent on the NHSTA and IIHS data?? The only other concievable way for SCORE to come out with the WHY would be to do their own independent crash testing exclusive of the NHSTA and IIHS. BUT, that is not the case here. SCORE merely relies on NHSTA and IIHS which does not always include the WHY. Hence, this is also why SCORE does not have the WHY either. |
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"If someone yelled that a Mustang has high roll over numbers, what would I do??? Before uprading its front shocks, installing HD springs or even installing an internal roll bar, I'd ask "what is the root cause????". If someone yells fire at a gas station, show me where and why. And if possible, show me the "how to prevent" in the future. Sounds like common sense questions to me... " Basically, you are also saying the NHSTA data is "incomplete" because it does not give the WHY, correct? Show me where in the NHSTA rollover rating of 3 out of 5 for the rdv, it tells you which corner dived at what point and what was the "root cause" of the rollover or "how to correct" it? I don't think you are going to find such a specific report even in the NHSTA that you cite to so often. So if the NHSTA doesn't even have the "WHY" or list the "root cause", why are you so against SCORE? You apparently don't have a problem with NHSTA, and you have even posted a link and cited to it in past posts. Yet, you seem to fail to realize that SCORE IS BASED on NHSTA which ALSO does not state the WHY? It indeed does seem that you are opposed to SCORE and not NHSTA not because the WHY is not listed, but because YOUR car, the RDV, has a bad result with SCORE but not with NHSTA. NHSTA gives the RDV an acceptable rating, yet you don't question why it doesn't list the WHY. So why (no pun intended) then are you singling out SCORE as not listing the "WHY" when BOTH NHSTA and SCORE do not have it??? Your answer to the above question would be very helpful in me trying to determine where you are coming from.... |
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"So why (no pun intended) then are you singling out SCORE as not listing the "WHY" when BOTH NHSTA and SCORE do not have it??? " Spike99, it seems you have a weird bias here. You will NOT question a result as long as it is a "good result". Meaning, even if the NHSTA doesn't list a why, if the rating it gives your vehicle is a generally "good" one, then you dont' even question it at all. On the other hand, when SCORE gives your vehicle a bad rating, then all of a sudden you are interested in the WHY and complain that no WHY was given.... But if you look at your reasoning, you are not applying your principles uniformly. You will question the WHY only when the rating is bad. But when the rating is "good" (like with the NHSTA data), you don't question the absence of the "WHY's". Is this lack of consistency logical?? |
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spike99, to make things even simpler to undersand, look at it this way... NHSTA and IIHS are the finders of fact. They are the ones doing the crash testing. They are the only ones that can come up with the WHERE or the WHYs because they are doing the investigation and performing the actual tests.... SCORE is merely interpreting the data/results give by the IIHS and NHTA using formulas and their methodolgy. They do NOT appear to be doing any fact finding. Their interpretation RELIES ON the fact finding done by NHSTA and IIHS and SCORE is not doing any of its own fact finding. Therefore, since your question regarding the "whys" and the "wheres" are an issue of fact, you have a beef with the NHSTA and the IIHS, not SCORE.... I do not see how you can argue that SCORE should be including the WHYS and WHERES when they are not doing any fact finding and those issues are 100% questions of fact. I do not think it is entirely logical to attack the validity of the SCORE ratings based on the argument that they did not list enough detailed factual results, detailed findings that could only have been done by the NHSTA and IIHS. Besides, if the NHSTA and IIHS did do those detailed findings and showed the WHY and the WHERE in their data, all you would have to do to find that data and answer your questions would be to look at those findings to answer your questions. It is going about it the wrong way to say that SCORE should be answering those questions, IMHO. |
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"The last time it got mentioned outside the forums was in May of 2006 (and guess who mentioned it ) link." steve, i'm glad you own a vehicle that seems to be rated well both according to IIHS, NHSTA and SCORE... Wish I could say the same for myself, but since it appears there is no SCORE evaluation of a RDV w/ SAB and ESC, I'm out of luck for now...
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