Why the Ford Explorer and Jeep Grand Cherokee flunked their crash tests

June 12--Nobody should be surprised that the Ford Explorer and Jeep Grand Cherokee scored worst in crash tests by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. Least of all anyone in management at Ford or Fiat Chrysler.

Lousy safety ratings are inevitable when an automaker delays replacing a vehicle and newer competitors surpass it. Fiat Chrysler and Ford management are notorious for keeping vehicles in production after the sell-by date for their underlying structure.

The Explorer and Grand Cherokee are still terrific vehicles. They're getting hammered because they've been on the market longer than any of the competitors.

FCA and Ford will pay for that mistake.

Who wants to buy a car that just flunked a crash test? And who wouldn't expect a big discount on a car that just flunked a safety test?

Crash tests evolve over time, as automakers work to make every new vehicle's underlying structure -- called a platform or architecture -- stronger and safer. As vehicles master each set of tests, researchers and regulators create new ones to keep raising the bar.

That's just one of the many ways that vehicles grow uncompetitive over time. The front-passenger-side, offset 40-mph test that undid Ford and Jeep didn't exist when the SUVs were engineered.

It's worth noting that while IIHS blasted the Explorer and Grand Cherokee, both SUVs have pretty good safety ratings from the federal National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, www.NHTSA.gov.

IIHS is a private research group that's funded by the insurance industry. It updates its tests frequently to encourage automakers to add safety features rapidly. NHTSA's tests evolve more slowly, in step with changes to safety regulations.

The Explorer and Grand Cherokee are both overdue to be replaced with all-new models. They are the oldest vehicles in their class.

Ford and FCA have added features like collision and lane-departure alerts since they debuted, but it's harder to re-engineer an architecture's basic structure. That's where crash tests come in. No amount of electronics updates or computer simulations can replace the horrendous violence of hitting a telephone pole at 40 mph.

All the SUVs that beat the Explorer and Grand Cherokee in the IIHS test have newer structures.

Why? FCA Sergio Marchionne has repeatedly delayed an all-new Grand Cherokee. Instead, the company invested in new vehicles like the Renegade and Compass, and kept changing plans for the next Grand Cherokee.

Ford used to frequently let great vehicles age into near-irrelevance. That seemed to change during Alan Mulally's tenure as CEO, but the company fell back into old habits after the Great Recession.

But one way or another, they'll pay. Either today for engineering to develop new vehicles, or tomorrow when it takes more incentives to get customers to take a chance on a vehicle that just flunked a crash test.

Contact Mark Phelan: mmphelan@freepress.com or 313-222-6731. Follow him on Twitter @mark_phelan.

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