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----- Legal Mumbo Jumbo ----- The Bronco II is famous as the "Bucking Bronco." A raging, uncontrolable death trap.... And with good reason! The damn thing WAS a death trap. It was a very capable off-road machine, but far from an equally capable on-road machine. I have driven my stock Bronco to it's absolute limit. I have gotten it up on two wheels on 3 occasions, possibly more I just don't remember cause I was too busy yelling out the window. If you get a Bronco you will notice immediately the "Jacking" effect turning has. Bronco II's all look like their ass is sagging. This is partially because of the smaller, rear wheel well openings, and partially because of the the aforementioned jacking problem. I would recommend immediate removal of the stock steering system for a better, aftermarket one. You can find listings of my favorites in the "Parts" section. |
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The Ford Bronco II---------- • The Bronco II has a "handling" problem like many other of the small sport utility vehicles. It does friction rollovers on the highway. A friction rollover occurs when the cornering forces -tire friction forces- generated by the driver's steering input becomes high enough to cause the vehicle to rotate around its longitudinal axis and lift the tires off the ground. Most passenger vehicles cannot rollover in this way, although they can rollover as a result of wheel trip when the sliding wheel is blocked by a curb or some other impediment. This problem appears in small vehicles because they are too narrow in relation to their height. • Ford knew that the vehicle exhibited this behavior. Their own tests conducted while the vehicle was still in development produced numerous wheel lift events. They were very concerned about it, they even considered a last minute cancellation of the program but they went ahead and produced the vehicle because they needed the money. Ford had lost billions of dollars in the years preceding the Bronco II introduction and was on the verge of bankruptcy. The Bronco II was very profitable, some estimates put Ford's profits at about $ 3400.00 per vehicle when it was introduced in 1983 with a basic list price of about $ 10,000.00. • Ford was concerned with the problem because of the negative publicity generated by the Jeep CJ rollovers. There is some evidence that Ford lawyers actually went to the Arizona test facility and watched it roll over before it went into production. Ford started planning its defense of the vehicle early, they knew they would be sued. There have been suggestions of a cover-up and deliberate destruction of documents in disregard of the companies own policies. |
• How did Ford get into this situation? Why wasn't the vehicle fixed before it went into production? This is a very interesting story and goes to the heart of the problems exhibited by the American automobile industry in this period. Ford had decided to produce a small pickup, the Ranger or "Yuma" project it was originally called, in order to compete with the Japanese and the new Chevy S10. They also decided to develop a new size "utility vehicle" using the small pickups' chassis. They committed from the beginning to making the Bronco II a derivative vehicle, based on a narrow pickup's components. • Early testing revealed problems, the earliest prototypes were even worse than the CJ 5. They made the Bronco II as wide and stable as they could- without changing the basic platform. Abandoning the Ranger platform would have delayed the project about 18 months and cost Ford hundreds of millions of dollars. Ford documents reveal constant modifications and proposed revisions to eliminate the problem. But effective fixes were too expensive or too drastic to implement so they did the best they could with the project they started with and put the vehicle into production. • The Bronco II has another problem in addition to being too narrow (actually it is the widest of the small SUV's of this era). Ford decided to use its twin I beam front suspension in the vehicle largely to preserve continuity along the truck lines and for other marketing considerations. The twin I beam front end actually raises the vehicle when it is cornering, about 2.5". This phenomenon is called "jacking" and while present in most front suspension designs, with the Ford suspension the effect is extreme and may make the vehicle go over even though the basic dimensions do not. • Several Ford engineers have testified along the lines suggested above and we have their depositions and trial transcripts We also have many of the "Bates" documents concerned with development and testing of the Bronco II. Perhaps most importantly we have the seldom told story about why SUV's of this era were so narrow. It has to do with foreign tax laws and is a rather fascinating insight into the international automotive industry. |
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/rollover/
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Ford TFI Module Failure------------ The models affected have ignition modules mounted on the distributor and are listed below. When its temperature goes above 257 degrees Fahrenheit, the module is likely to cut out and cause the vehicle to die on the road. When the vehicle cools down, it can be restarted and will run until it again exceeds the design temperature. This is a hard problem to diagnose because by the time the vehicle gets towed to the dealer or sits in the shop waiting for repair, it has cooled down and no cause can be found for the stalling. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) conducted four investigations into stalling on Fords, Lincolns and Mercurys with these ignition modules but only got the recall of 1.1 million 1984-85 models with 1.5 and 2.3 liter 4-cylinder engines. Ford concealed significant information from NHTSA so that the agency mistakenly dropped its investigation into other models. The results are often tragic. One accident in California claimed four lives when a rental car stalled, loss its power steering and brakes so quickly that the driver lost control on the highway. After five years of litigation, a settlement has been reached in a national class action in California, Howard v. Ford Motor Co., that will reimburse owners for ignition module failures that occurred withing the first 100,000 miles, and will extend the warranty to 100,000 miles for any vehicle still under this mileage. For more information, go to www.tfisettlement.com. The following vehicles have distributor-mounted TFI modules: 1984-85 Escort/Lynx (1.6L) Your action is vital to our ensuring that Ford stops its stalling stonewall and recalls all cars, trucks and vans with defective ignition modules mounted on the distributor. Here's what you can do to force a recall. |
Light trucks crashing into cars accounts for the
majority of fatalities in vehicle-to-vehicle collisions 2,000 people would still be alive if their vehicles had been hit by a heavy car instead of an SUV 80 percent of car and SUV owners strongly that automakers should make safety changes to SUVs that would make the roads safer for car occupants ARE SUV'S SAFE?--------- Overall safety on America's roads has increased over the last decade. However, sport utility vehicles (SUVs) threaten to reverse the trend. There is increasing evidence that SUVs are not as safe as they appear. Recent studies show that SUVs pose a significant threat to drivers and passengers of other cars on the road. In addition, there are indications that safety problems threaten passengers and drivers of SUVs themselves. Most drivers want to feel safe on the road, but choosing an SUV for safety may be making the situation worse. Partly, it's an issue of escalation. Like an arms race, as more drivers choose heavier cars, those who choose lighter cars are in more danger. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the government agency studying the safety of SUVs, describes two characteristics of SUVs and other light trucks that have the potential to increase fatalities: rollover propensity and crash compatibility.(1) ROLLOVER AND UNSAFE FEATURES The propensity of sport utility vehicles to roll over is major safety concern. Sport utility vehicles are more than three times more likely to roll over in crash than normal passenger cars. The higher roll-over propensity may also lead to higher fatalities.
Smaller SUVs - with a wheelbase of less than 100 inches - had a disproportionately high incidence of fatal rollover crashes. Small SUVs were involved in rollover crashes more than four times as often as the average passenger car.(3) The rollover phenomenon is not new. Consumers Union, publisher of Consumer Reports magazine, along with the Center for Auto Safety and the Safety First Coalition, first reported serious rollover concerns with a small SUV model, the Suzuki Samurai, in 1988. In 1997, Consumers Union reported that the Isuzu Trooper, Acura SLX, Suzuki Samurai and Ford Bronco II had "shown a significant tendency to tip." Since 1988, Consumers Union has tried to get the government safety agency, NHTSA, to investigate certain SUV models and issue rollover standards for cars and SUVs. NHTSA began to do so, but abandoned efforts to make a universal rollover standard in 1994 concluding that such a standard would require a redesign of nearly all SUVs, vans and pick-up trucks. NHTSA reasoned that the cost for this redesign would be too high. (4) Technical Services, a forensic engineering firm based in Portland Oregon and Chicago Illinois, has published a short case study of the Ford Bronco II's rollover problems on its website. Technical Services writes: "The Bronco II has a 'handling' problem like many other of the small sport utility vehicles. It does friction rollovers on the highway. A friction rollover occurs when the cornering forces - tire friction forces - generated by the driver's steering input becomes high enough to cause the vehicle to rotate around its longitudinal axis and lift the tires off the ground. Most passenger vehicles cannot rollover in this way, although they can rollover as a result of wheel trip when the sliding wheel is blocked by a curb or some other impediment." (5) In other words, if the driver steers to hard, the SUV can tip over. SUVs do not have to meet the same safety standards as passenger cars. The double standard exists due to arcane federal rules classifying SUVs as light trucks. Less rigid rules mean occupants of SUVs are not protected by the side-impact crash safety standards or strength requirements for bumpers required on standard passenger cars. According to The Truck, Van and 4x4 book, 1998 by Jack Gillis, the "newly adopted roof strength standard does not go far enough to effectively protect occupants in a rollover situation."(6) The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, a research organization for the insurance industry, has conducted crash tests of SUVs. The results have been mixed, at best. In a test designed to show how well vehicles protect the driver and passengers in a crash, midsized SUVs were given a rating of "good", "acceptable", "marginal" or "poor". None of the 13 SUVs tested was rated "good." Five were rated as "acceptable," three as "marginal," and five as "poor." Popular models including the Jeep Grand Cherokee and Nissan Pathfinder earned "marginal" ratings. "Poor" ratings went to models such as the Chevy Blazer, GMC Jimmy and the Isuzu Rodeo. The tests measured how well head restraints and bumpers performed and damage to the vehicle's structure. In addition, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety looked at driver death rates. The largest SUVs had fewer driver deaths than average. However mid-sized and smaller SUVs - like the Nissan Pathfinder, Suzuki Sidekick, and Jeep Wrangler - had driver death rates substantially higher than average. In examining deaths per million passengers, SUVs had nearly the same death rates in accidents as small cars, but substantially more fatalities than mid-sized or large cars.(7) The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety has recently examined head restraint designs for cars and SUVs. Proper head restraints can lower the severity of whiplash injuries in an accident. In a May 1999 study, the Institute found only two models of SUVs - the Mitsubishi Montero and certain models of the Chevy Blazer - had head restraints that merited a "good" rating. Most were listed as "marginal" or "poor." (8) Many people buy SUVs to feel safe on the road. What they are not told is that they may be putting their own lives, and the lives of other people on the road, in serious danger by driving these oversized, poorly designed vehicles. CRASH COMPATIBILITY While SUVs pose serious safety problems for their occupants, recent studies are showing that SUVs are greatly increasing the danger on our roads for drivers and passengers in other cars. Federal information shows that although light trucks account for one-third of all registered vehicles, traffic crashes between a light truck and any other vehicle now account for the majority of fatalities in vehicle-to-vehicle collisions. Of the 5,259 fatalities caused when light trucks struck cars in 1996, 81 percent of the fatally injured were occupants of the car.(9) In multiple-vehicle crashes, the occupants of the car are four times more likely to be killed than the occupants of the SUV.(10) In a side-impact collision with an SUV, car occupants are 27 times more likely to die.(11) SUVs simply are not compatible in accidents with smaller-sized cars. It is natural to think that SUVs would cause more damage in accidents, because they tend to be heavier than other cars. However, the danger from SUVs appears to be caused by more than just their weight. Comparisons between vehicles that have similar weights, like the Ford Taurus, a mid-sized sedan, and the Ford Ranger, a pick-up (which provides the platform for the Ford Explorer), have shown disproportionate impacts in accidents. The increased damage results in large part from the design of these vehicles. On average, light trucks and SUVs are designed to ride eight inches higher than a car. SUVs also have a more rigid frame - usually consisting of two steel rails. Most cars only use one rail. These two design factors greatly increase the damage caused in a crash with a passenger car. In March 1999 NHTSA examined the design of many popular SUVs and found that the height and frames of SUVs make them extra lethal to people riding in smaller vehicles. Differences in vehicle weight did not account for the extra risk. NHTSA conducted tests showing what happens when an SUV crashes into a Honda Accord. Several SUVs were crashed into the front driver's-side corner of the Accord. A Ford Explorer caused the most damage to the Accord. While the results might indicate that the Explorer is the safer vehicle, video of the crash test shows that the Explorer nearly rolled over after hitting the Accord, and teetering on two wheels for several moments.(12) This study was very important because it examined how many car occupants killed in accidents with SUVs might have survived had the accidents involved passenger cars weighing the same as SUVs. This is in important finding, because auto manufacturers have maintained that the weight of SUVs make them dangerous to smaller cars, not the design. The NHTSA study concludes that 2,000 people would have survived if their vehicles had been hit by a heavy car instead of a heavy SUV. Two thousand is five percent of the nation's annual traffic fatalities. The study declares that light trucks and SUVs are twice as likely to cause a fatality in the struck car than a passenger car of comparable weight.(13) In response to studies like this, automakers have begun saying they will make changes to make SUVs more compatible with other cars. When Ford Motor Company introduced it's new monster, the Excursion (19 feet long, 6 1/2 feet wide, and weighing in at 8,500 pounds), Ford added a front beam and a rear tow hitch to prevent other vehicles from sliding under the Excursion during an accident. The Excursion will be the largest SUV on the market and could be extremely dangerous in an accident with a smaller vehicle since almost every vehicle on the road is smaller. Ford has not added the safety beam to its other SUVs. The compatibility issue is not confined to crashes. The size and design of SUVs raises other safety issues. For instance, placement of headlights is a serious nuisance and a potential safety problem. On large SUVs, the headlights are mounted higher than on cars. Large SUVs have headlights mounted 36 to 39 inches above the ground - the same height as the side mirror on a small car. The glare from SUVs' headlights can appear to other drivers as bright as high beams. Glare can be 10 to 20 times worse than recommended levels when headlights are at the height of a driver's eyes or side mirror, according to a study by the Society of Automotive Engineers. (14) Automakers traditionally claim that they are simply giving the public what they want with SUVs. But recent survey results show that the public is concerned about SUVs compatibility with other passenger cars. In March 1998, the Independent Insurance Agents of America (IIAA) conducted a poll which found that nearly 80 percent of car and SUV owners feel "very strongly" or "somewhat strongly" that automakers should make safety changes to SUVs and other light trucks that would reduce risk to car occupants. This overwhelming majority points to a growing concern among the public that SUVs and cars have a hard time coexisting on the roads.(15) With today's SUVs growing ever larger, automakers have begun a war of escalation - like a new arms race. In the end, the result of this race may be lower overall highway safety.
Endnotes: 1. "Overview of Vehicle Compatibility/ LTV Issues". National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Feb. 1998. pg. 2 2. Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. 3. Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. 4. Consumer Reports Magazine 5.Technical Services Website 6. Gillis, Jack. The truck, van and 4x4 book. 1998. pg. 5. 7. Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. 8. Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, Status Report "Special Issue: Neck Injuries in Rear-End Crashes," Volume 34, No. 5, May 22, 1999 9. Gabler, Hampton and Hollowell, William. "The Agressivity of Light Trucks and Vans in Traffic Crashes," U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Document 980908, March 1998. 10. Traffic Safety Facts 1996: A Compilation of Motor Vehicle Crash Data from the Fatality Analysis Reporting System and the General Estimates System. DOT HS 808 649, Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Transportation; National Highway Traffic Safety Administration; National Center for Statistics and Analysis, December, 1997. Chapter 3. page 64. table 37. 11. The Insurance Institute For Highway Safety - Feb.98 study and Nauss , Donald. April 5 1998. "Detroit Circles the Trucks; The big three defend sport-utilities and other hot sellers against an assault by regulators and environmentalists." Los Angeles Times. SectionD: Page 1. 12. Bradsher, Keith. New York Times, "Study Cites Fatal Design of Sport Utility Vehicles." March 2, 1999. 13. Bradsher, Keith. New York Times, "Study Cites Fatal Design of Sport Utility Vehicles." March 2, 1999. 14. Bradsher, Keith. New York Times, "Larger Vehicles are Hampering Visibility," November 22, 1998 15. Independent Insurance Agents of America website. 16. Traffic Safety Facts 1996: A Compilation of Motor Vehicle Crash Data from the Fatality Analysis Reporting System and the General Estimates System. DOT HS 808 649, Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Transportation; National Highway Traffic Safety Administration; National Center for Statistics and Analysis , December, 1997. Chapter 3. page 64. table 37. 17. Model Year 1998 Fuel Economy Guide. United States Department of Energy. using figures compiled by the United States Environmental Protection Agency. October 1997 and The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety web site |
All the crap on this
page is copyright © Aaron
Martin- Colby. Except for the pictures... I stole those. e-mail me at alphamc@bellatlantic.net |
