Word: wheelings
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Horizon and Dodge Omni subcompacts against charges last month by the Consumers Union testing group that the cars careened wildly during some extreme road tests. Now the company has received some strong support from Washington. After conducting the same road tests as did Consumers Union on the two front-wheel-drive cars, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reported the same results-but ruled that the cars are every bit as safe as Chrysler contends. NHTSA argued that the tests are, in effect, irrelevant to driving situations that motorists encounter in the real world...
...Canadian Ministry of Transport also tested the cars and reached the same general conclusion, but it had some reservations. The Canadians were concerned that when the Omni or Horizon is traveling at high speed, and the steering wheel is yanked sharply to one side, then released and allowed to swing free while the driver keeps his foot on the gas, the wheel oscillates back and forth. This characteristic was not a "defect" but was "undesirable," said the Canadian engineers, and they feel Chrysler should correct it. Added Peter Keith, head of the ministry's advanced-engineering department: "While this...
...real question in the dispute is whether either of the two major tests has much practical value. Besides the steering-wheel test, there was also the avoidance-maneuver test, in which the cars were driven between markers to see how quickly they could swerve to dodge an obstacle without lurching out of control. When the test is performed with the Omni and Horizon, the cars do not begin to veer until speeds approaching 60 m.p.h. Many full-size sedans will do so at much lower speeds. In fact, every car on the highway will...
...surprised to get the Consumers Union findings; it had received no previous complaints about the Omni-Horizon. Deputy Administrator Howard Dugoff says NHTSA "cannot yet explain" how Consumers Union and Chrysler got such diametrically opposed results on the critical second test. Determining whether the first let-go-of-the-wheel test has any real relation to the auto's performance, says Dugoff, "will be tough-we will have to do some rather extensive analysis." Should Omni-Horizon fail NHTSA tests, the agency could order Chrysler to recall all autos sold in order to correct the trouble...
...Ford also have an interest in the uproar: if Omni-Horizon sales should be flattened by the C.U. warning, it would not be a good omen for the front-wheel-drive cars that they are preparing to bring out over the next two years. Americans already are buying hundreds of thousands of front-wheel-drive cars imported from abroad, including Volkswagen's Rabbit, Honda's Civic and the Ford Fiesta. Consumers Union found no fault with these cars, which it says passed the same tests that the Omni-Horizon flunked. Nor did Consumers Union express any doubts about...