Small Ford SUV Rated Low in Crash Test

The newest version of Ford Motor Co.’s popular Escape sport-utility vehicle earned low marks in crash tests conducted by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.

The institute, an insurance industry group that studies and lobbies auto makers on safety issues, said it gave the same low marks to Mazda Motor Co.’s small Tribute SUV.

The Escape is the best-selling sport-utility vehicle in its class and an important contributor to earnings at Ford, the world’s second-largest auto maker. Ford, which owns a controlling 33% stake in Mazda, developed the Escape with the Japanese auto maker’s Tribute.

Of the other two small SUVs it tested, the insurance institute said, Hyundai Motor Co.’s 2001 model Santa Fe won a “good” overall rating, while Toyota Motor Co.’s 2001 RAV4 got an “acceptable” rating.

The insurance group’s offset crash tests are designed to gauge how well occupants would survive in a vehicle if the driver side of the front end slammed into a barrier at 40 mph.

The institute said the 2001 Escape merited only a “marginal” safety rating because of what it called its poor head restraint system and the “high likelihood” a driver would suffer injury to the right leg in a crash.

“Overall, this is a disappointing showing,” said institute President Brian O’Neill. “The Escape was Ford’s joint program with Mazda, and clearly this cooperative effort didn’t produce a particularly crash-worthy design.”

The Escape and Tribute, which were plagued with a whole catalog of problems when launched last summer, use many of the same components. They are built at the same plant in Claycomo, Mo.

“We are disappointed with the marginal rating in the frontal offset test,” James Vondale, director of Ford’s Automotive Safety Office, said in a statement. “We will review the results and decide if any changes are appropriate.”

Vondale said the Escape had performed well in federal government frontal impact crash tests. But the offset crash tests carried out by the insurance institute, similar to tests done in Europe, have become widely accepted among auto makers.

In its look at the Escape’s performance, the institute said the crash test dummy’s head struck both the steering wheel through the air bag and the so-called B-pillar on the side of the SUV.

“Both impacts were hard,” the institute said.