LexusLuver

http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll...605120393/1148

Nice to know the new Camry's roof is stamped out of special high-strenght steel to reduce accident severity, Ford clearly shows a lack of concern.

http://www.caranddriver.com/roadtest...-camry-se.html

Overclocker

"Ford argues release of documents would uncover important proprietary
information." What, that their cars are rolling death-trap P.O.S.?

Oops, did I type that out loud? Oh well. More proof that Ford is the devil.

CVsIS250

Like others have said before, "At least they circled the problem."

CV

mmarshall

So what does it matter if the so-called " documents " are made public or not?

Of course stronger roofs will mean greater safety in a rollover.......that is just plain common sense. We don't need a judge to tell us that. But things are not always as simple as they appear.
What has to be kept in mind, though, is that you could get to a point where you run into the law of diminishing returns. If you put more metal thickness into the roof and roof pillars for support, what does that do? Add weight, of course. And, all other things equal, what does more weight up on the roof mean? A higher center of gravity, of course. And what does a higher center of gravity produce? Yes......even MORE of a tendency to roll.

Now...as for the Explorer rollovers, much has been publically documented about the last-generation Explorer suspensions and steering systems, and the Firestone Wilderness tires....I won't rehash all of that here. But what the media did not do a good job of covering was the fact that Explorer drivers themselves played a significant role in that also. Too many times, Explorers were overloaded with people and baggage, towing trailers, and driven too fast on hot road surfaces with too little air in the tires when a simple PSI check and a little common sense might have prevented it. Hot roads, high speeds, low air pressure, and overloaded vehicles are a perfect recipe for tire failure.....especially whan all four are combined. Most tires give you somewhat of a safety margin to allow for error and overlap....the Wilderness tires clearly did not have as much of a safety margin as most other tires did. Tire PSI's were critical on them, and Ford and Firestone could not always agree on what the right PSI was to start with either.

4TehNguyen

iTrader: (1)

SUVs and trucks have lesser roof strength standards than typical passenger cars because SUVs and trucks are considered light trucks. They need to follow the same safety standards as cars its ridiculous

When you have a vehicle with a higher tendency to roll over, a weaker roof, a heavy vehicle which will crush roofs when rolled over, recipe for heavy injuries during a roll over

marshall: well just blindly putting more steel on a roof isnt a great approach I would think most manafacturers would use a higher grade higher strength steel than the one you use for the other parts of the vehicle, just like the camry, or design the roofs members with higher strength shapes as well

mmarshall

I agree that heavier roofs are not necessarily the answer....I made that clear in my post. Higher strength steels, as you suggest may or may not work, depending on their weight.
I think that a good idea would be to simply put in roll bars like in some convertibles. That would form a protective roll cage without adding too much weight...or going to heavier steels.....on the roof.