Crash Tests Indicate Jeep Fire Risk
Safety groups warn millions of Jeep Grand Cherokees from the 1993 through 2004 model years are particularly susceptible to fires when struck from behind and should be recalled.Three independently conducted crash tests including one performed last month indicated the risk.
The Center for Auto Safety, a nonprofit safety advocacy group founded in 1970 by Ralph Nader, says the Grand Cherokee’s fuel system is clearly more dangerous in a rear-impact collision than those of competing vehicles, like the Ford Explorer, produced in the same era.
About three million Grand Cherokees with similar fuel systems were built by Chrysler over 12 years; some 2.2 million of those sport utilities are still registered, according to Experian Automotive. The center’s recall request is specifically for the Grand Cherokee, not the Cherokee, a different model.
Clarence Ditlow, the executive director of the Center for Auto Safety, based in Washington, says that rear-impact crash tests of 1995, 1996 and 1999 Grand Cherokees showed, in each case, significant leaks of gasoline, posing a danger not only to the Jeeps’ occupants but those of the striking vehicle. In two of the tests, commissioned by the safety group, a Ford Taurus hit the Jeep’s rear at about 50 m.p.h. In the third the Taurus struck at about 40 m.p.h. For a comparison, the center said a 1995 Ford Explorer struck by a Taurus at 70 m.p.h. maintained an intact fuel system.
“The 1995 Ford Explorer showed vastly better fuel system integrity than its contemporary peer 1995 Jeep Grand Cherokee,” the center said last month in a letter to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
The tests were conducted by Karco Engineering of Adelanto, Calif., which also does testing for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, and the Federal Outdoor Impact Laboratory, based in McLean, Va.
The federal safety agency began a preliminary investigation of the 1993-2004 Grand Cherokees last August, granting a request made by the center almost a year earlier. In its request the Center for Auto Safety said it found “172 fatal fire crashes ” resulting in 254 deaths during 1992-2008 in Grand Cherokees.
In at least one case the driver of the vehicle that struck a Jeep died in a fire. Jose Sierra died of burns in 1999 a day after his Toyota MR2 struck the rear of a Grand Cherokee on Long Island. Two sisters riding in the Grand Cherokee were seriously burned.
Once a vehicle is 10 years old an automaker may not be required to pay, although it does have to notify the owner, said Mr. Kam, the former N.H.T.S.A. official. But, he said, automakers have typically concluded it would be extremely bad public relations to notify an owner of a safety problem and then decline to fix it.
Karen Aldana, an N.H.T.S.A. spokeswoman, said that the safety agency was aware of the results of the center’s tests. She declined to comment other than to note that the agency’s investigation continues.
