The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety gives the Mitsubishi Montero Sport a poor rating, while the Mercedes M-class rates among the safest midsize SUVs on the market VIDEOS CNN's Bill Hemmer shows the tests Windows Media 28K 80K CNN talks to Car and Driver magazine's Csaba Csere about the crash tests Real 28K 80K Windows Media 28K 80K

July 7, 1999
Web posted at: 11:19 a.m. EDT (1519 GMT)

In this story: 'Major collapse of occupant compartment' Results (chart) Crash test criticism RELATED STORIES, SITES

ARLINGTON, Virginia (CNN) -- Sometimes, redesigning a vehicle makes it more likely to withstand a crash -- and sometimes it doesn't.

Crash tests on six midsize sport utility vehicles -- all of them with new designs or substantial redesigns -- revealed "a huge difference between the best and worst performers," an insurance industry group reported Wednesday.

The 40 mph frontal crash tests were carried out by The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. It took the new results and compared them to what it found from crash tests it performed previously on nine other midsize SUVs with still-current designs.

The vehicles carried test dummies and were rated in four categories: good, acceptable, marginal and poor.

The 1999 Mercedes M-Class and Lexus RX 300 were rated good after the latest frontal crash test. The 1998 and 1999 Toyota 4Runner also received a good rating when it was tested at an earlier time.

Americans bought nearly 3 million SUVs in 1998, with upscale manufacturers like Mercedes and Lexus getting into the act as the market grows. But institute president Brian O'Neill said price does not equal safety.

"The most likely reason these two models performed well is that they're the newest designs," he said. "Newer designs are performing much better than older designs."

Of the four other newly tested SUVs, the 1999 Land Rover Discovery Series II and the 1998 and 1999 Dodge Durango were rated acceptable; the 1999 Jeep Grand Cherokee was rated marginal; and the 1997 though 1999 Mitsubishi Montero Sport earned a poor rating.

The Montero Sport had "a major collapse of the occupant compartment," O'Neill said. "The instrument panel was pushed toward the dummy, reducing the space available for the safety belt and airbag to prevent life-threatening injuries."

A human being would be injured in a crash where the passenger compartment starts to collapse around the test dummy -- as occurred with the Montero Sport, said Csaba Csere, editor of Car and Driver magazine.

"That's where the Mercedes was very, very good," Csere said.

"Car makers haven't been designing for this 40 mile an hour test until very recently," he added.

In earlier tests, the Montero and the 1995-1999 Ford Mountaineer and Mercury Explorer were also rated acceptable, while the 1997-1999 Nissan Pathfinder, Infiniti QX4 and Jeep's 1996-1998 Grand Cherokee were rated marginal.

The midsize SUVs previously rated poor were the 1995-1999 Chevrolet Blazer, GMC Jimmy and Oldsmobile Bravada. The 1996-1997 models of the Isuzu Rodeo and Honda Passport received poor marks as well.

The consumer information provided by such crash tests is useful, but limited, says Mark Vaughan, an editor at AutoWeek magazine.

"People shouldn't take six SUVs as being representative of the whole thing," he told CNN. "You can't say the one that fared the best in this study is the safest SUV on the road. You can't say the worst is the worst SUV on the road."

Csere agrees. The 40 mph frontal crash the institute used for its latest test "is not very common," he told CNN.

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