Anyone keeping an eye out on automotive news today would have seen the big story of the day. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety issued a press release last night announcing 2010's Top Safety Picks.
But the news was not who actually made the list, it was who didn't.
Hurting the most was Toyota, with 11 vehicles dropping from the top pick list. Also absent from the list was BMW. But, this was with good reason as they did not send cars to be tested yet, according to a BMW representative.
Why all this hub-bub? The IIHS introduced a new roof-crush test, which in some cases was the deciding factor. More on the test from the IIHS' website below:
"In the Institute's roof strength test, a metal plate is pushed against 1 side of a roof at a constant speed. To earn a good rating, the roof must withstand a force of 4 times the vehicle's weight before reaching 5 inches of crush. This is called a strength-to-weight ratio. For an acceptable rating, the minimum required strength-to-weight ratio is 3.25. A marginal rating value is 2.5. Anything lower than that is poor.
The Institute's test method is the same one that has been used for testing under the federal roof strength regulation since 1973, but with much higher requirements. Vehicles only need a strength-to-weight ratio of 1.5 to meet the federal regulation. While the actual roof strengths of vehicles may surpass this minimum level by a large amount, this information has not been available to consumers. Institute research has found that a vehicle with a roof strength-to-weight ratio of 4.0 has an estimated 50 percent reduction in the risk of serious and fatal injury in single-vehicle rollover crashes compared with the minimum level of 1.5."
BMW North America's official statement on this controversial subject said "Because no 2010 BMW models were tested for the Insurance Institute for Highways Safety's (IIHS) new rollover rating, no BMW vehicles could qualify for the 2010 round of "Top Safety Picks."
In addition to this, the Bavarians continued to stand behind their vehicles and state that during normal testing protocol, BMW puts the vehicle through three real-world tests that simulate striking a road divider, a car leaving the motorway sideways and a car going down an embankment.
In contrast, Toyota's Irv Miller issued a statement saying that the IIHS' statement about Toyota being "shut out for 2010 is extreme and misleading."
Miller says this was because only three Toyota models were tested for roof strength and the IIHS' proprietary test exceeds federal standards.
At the end of the day, the question remains: what roof-crush test really matters? You pick, a static test where a metal plate is applied to a roof OR a real-world type of test that simulates a rollover.
What say you, SPIES? Check out the video below to see BMW's in-house testing.
ALSO, check out the picture below to see IIHS' grading chart...
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