Toyota Customer's Story: PRADO

Prologue

As I told in blog's description, my site is about my recent experience with Toyota and one of their top products - Land Cruiser 120 Prado.

This is not a complaint, this is a warning. This is a warning for the people who thinks that a "legendary" brand + your money = your great experience...

Also, I will show you what CCS (Complete Customer Satisfaction) and "Customer First" concept, one of Toyota's main commitments, stands for in my case.

So what’s happened to the car?

A month ago, I had a car accident that showed me how vulnerable my car is.

My car was hit in its back-right wheel by other car (old VOLVO V40) at a crossroad near a small Finnish town center. Both cars were moving at 40 km/h or less. As a result of this collision, my car fell on its left side, rolled over the roof and finally fell at its right side.

The car is totally damaged: all its body and roof are bended and scratched, the windshield is broken, and so on.

Here is the picture:

Some more details..

To illustrate the case better, I included the trajectory of the car revealed during an expertise that followed. This is the picture that shows how the car was turned:

And this picture shows what happened from the other side - how the car rolled over:

ABOUT SAFETY

After the collision and while the Land Cruiser was rolling over not a single SRS airbag deployed.

I bought Land Cruiser 120 Prado SOL/R2 because I knew that it has 2 side-airbags and 2 window safety curtains. But not a single one of them opened up.

So, the fact is: the impact of the side-hit was enough for the car to roll over, but not enough for these safety systems to deploy and protect the passengers.

Of course, my wife, my child and me, all had hematomas because our bodies and heads were struck with roof pillars and other parts. IS IT SAFE FOR PASSENGERS?

Happily there were no pedestrians or other cars (except for the car that hit my car) around. It is easy to imagine how this massive rolling car could injure them. For example, this big car could roll into a bus stop full of people. Why? Just because it was hit not that strong when being moving not that fast at an ordinary crossroad. This can happen everywhere, no special conditions required. IS IT SAFE FOR THE OTHERS?

OK, there is one more point: may be my car was broken when this happened. But after this accident Toyota organized an expert inspection, and the report says that all car safety systems functioned normally, nothing failed or was broken. This means that this is NORMAL for the model.

Toyota's safety information

I looked for the safety information that is available at Toyota's sites like www.safetytoyota.com and found the following information. The picture shows closely what happened to my car, you can enlarge it to see my highlights:

They say "Toyota has established its own standards reflecting actual accidents and by also taking into account the standards stipulated by laws and regulations and third-party evaluations for providing safety information. In addition, Toyota has satisfied those standards to pursue the best-in-class safety level."

Please note, "its own standards", we'll talk about common standards in the next posts.

See how "cool" this is supposed to work:

BTW, this video shows how Land Cruiser Prado hits another Toyota car.. much interesting is that when Land Cruiser Prado is hit it just rolls over and no SRS's are deployed..

Euro NCAP safety data for Land Cruiser

I have looked for the safety information about Land Cruiser at the site of the most influential European car safety testing/rating organization - Euro NCAP.

You know what I found? Nothing. Check it yourself and see the result:

Why Land Cruiser is not there, neither LC Prado, nor LC 200 (V8)?

Well.. You can see how these guys (Euro NCAP) select the cars to test. They say that they select from the cars that seem most important for the market. Maybe Land Cruiser is not that important? OK.. But also they say:

"Cars can also be sponsored by the vehicle manufacturers. Some sponsor most of their models, others very few. The process for selecting the test variant and its safety equipment is exactly the same as for member-sponsored cars, and the same methods for ensuring random selection are used in both cases."

So Toyota doesn't want to pay for this, or what?

It's not that important for such a car? Then why VW Touareg, Land Rover Discovery and Range Rover, Nissan Pathfinder, Jeep Grand Cherokee, Volvo XC90, BMW X3 and X5 and other cars like these are there?

NHTSA safety data for Land Cruiser

NHTSA (The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration) is a US agency of the Executive Branch of the U.S. Government, part of the Department of Transportation.

I know that Toyota doesn't sell Land Cruiser 120 Prado in the US, but Toyota sells Land Cruiser 200 (V8) there.

So, may be Land Cruiser safety is rated there?

No, it's not. You can check it here.

IIHS safety data for Land Cruiser

OK, lets check one more US source of car safety ratings data - IIHS (Insurance Institute for Highway Safety), www.iihs.org.
NO LAND CRUISER AGAIN:

What about other SUVs?
Yes, BMW X5, Volvo XC90, Land Rover Discovery, Nissan Pathfinder, Jeep Grand Cherokee and much more other cars are there.

Other safety information sources

I also checked other car safety information sources like www.safercars.gov, US resource of NHTSA (The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration).

I found this information about rollover safety systems (rollover air bags and others) "In addition to protecting drivers’ or passengers’ heads during a side-impact crash, some side-impact head air bags, or "curtains," can also protect occupants from injury and ejection during a rollover crash. This is important because ejection causes most injuries and fatalities in rollover crashes - most people who are killed are not wearing safety belts to hold them in place."
They also say that "Not all side-impact head air bags are designed to deploy as rollover air bags. Check with your dealer and vehicle manufacturer for the availability of side-impact head air bags that can also operate as rollover air bags."

This kind of air bags is also called RSCA (Roll-sensing Side Curtain Airbags).

So it looks this high-center-of-gravity-SUV Land Cruiser Prado that costs approx. 50,000 Euro is just not equipped with this type of air bags.. I wonder why it's so if the manufacturer knows that HIGH CENTER OF GRAVITY = ROLLOVER DANGER?

Now lets check this about Land Cruiser 200. Toyota's site says that it does have "Three-row roll-sensing side curtain airbags (RSCA) with cutoff switch" and also says "Side Curtain Airbags have a roll-sensing deployment feature that will inflate the curtain airbags at severe tilt angles, or in a roll condition." It'd be great to see any test resuls for them..