Jeep Wrangler rollover: epic crash test failure

A shitbox Wrangler has parked on its side after flipping out twice during crash testing in the US. Is there no end to the recreational capability of this iconic coffin on wheels?

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The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety in Retardistan - which is what ANCAP dreams of becoming one day, if it can ever get its balls to drop - recently performed a laboratory-controlled ‘small overlap’ crash test on current-generation Shitbox Wrangler.

Think you know all about crash testing? Try your knowledge >>

Bear in mind this test occurs at just 40mph - that’s 64km/h - and 25 per cent of the front end, on the driver’s side, impacts a rigid barrier that’s about 1.5 metres high. It’s a severe, concentrated impact at a mundane driving speed. Like hitting a massive tree at the roadside, after nodding off.

It’s actually quite difficult to get a vehicle to park like that in a test such as this, onto a ‘billiard table-esque’ flat and level surface. 

So, to all you dickheads obsessed with the ‘rugged and truck-like’ toughness of your own personal Wrangler-badged coffin, I’d point the finger at the front axle collapsing catastrophically, and the huge lateral load upending the intrinsically unstable vehicle, which did not stop until it impacted both the barriers at the side and the end of the lab.

If you don’t know how crash testing works, get the basics here >>

And for some more entertaining thought experiments on crashes, try this >>

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The Jeeps go marching one by one…

Trowel it on

In the real world, of course, there are no barriers like that in the bush.

You’re in a vehicle with no roof, and you’re off the edge of the road, rolling and sliding into the trees, perhaps plunging down a ravine, holding your breath in a river, whatever. Communing with nature, with twist and pike. Taking ‘off road’ to a whole new level.

Predictably enough, Fiat Chrysler corporate geniuses questioned the Institute’s testing methodology. Here’s what happened:

IIHS agreed to conduct a second test using a different method, which was approved by Fiat Chrysler. The second test also ended with the vehicle tipping on its side.”

- IIHS

PR departments, of course, love to feel useful at times like this. So they printed this helpful recipe for a bullshit sandwich:

FCA routinely monitors third-party evaluations and factors such findings into our product-development process. We design our vehicles for real-world performance. And real-world data, along with continuing demand, indicate the Jeep Wrangler Unlimited meets or exceeds customer expectations…

-FCA shitbox-product spokesperson

Allow me to retort, on behalf of humanity, and reason: Dear Evil Empire spin-doctors: The vehicle flipped onto its side, violently, twice. 

Living life on the brink of certain death; HeliMed awaits a call-out.

The second time, during a test approved by your own in-house technical dipshits. It’s really not supposed to do that. It’s unsafe and an outdated design disgrace. 

I might further add that your fucked-up company has a greater obligation than merely to satisfy customer expectations.

Just like Ford’s shitbox Mustang customer expectations >>

Because when a person is gravely injured as a result of your inherent and systematic design deficiencies, it is society, collectively, which is forced to pick up the tab. You arseholes.

That goes for you too, Ford. And Nissan, selling the dog-turd terrible Navara Necrosis in the third world for as long as it did.

When are these arsehole carmakers going to stop treating humans like hyper-disposable post zombie apocalypse toilet tissue? As if HeliMed doesn’t get enough work these days.

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Naked jape

For the purposes of comparison, here’s how a non-shitheap deals with the small overlap test. In fact - here’s how a non-shitheap aced the test seven long years ago.

Subaru Forester, 2013. A performance which earned it the Institute’s highest award of ‘Top Safety Pick Plus’.

The voice you will hear is Joe Nolan - the Institute’s VP of vehicle research talking about the Forester.

If you ask the man in the street which vehicle is tougher: Forester or Wrangler. Many would say ‘Wrangler’. Unfortunately, physics is often counter-intuitive.

But, unlike the (I’m guessing) glue-sniffers at FCA, it wasn’t difficult for Subaru’s engineers to learn and demonstrate the basic understanding of physics and vehicle rebound >>

Speaking of head protection, which Mr Nolan just mentioned: Back to current Shitbox Wrangler and it’s laughably disgraceful results >>

That freedom to have your brains beaten out. Removable roof = no curtain airbags. Do you feel like sitting in the back of Shitbox Wrangler now? I know I don’t.

The institute awards ‘Good’, ‘Acceptable’, ‘Marginal’ and ‘Poor’ ratings in the small overlap crash test. Death Trap Wrangler scored ‘Marginal’ - which makes me wonder if a vehicle must catch fire and explode like a claymore mine to get all the way to ‘poor’.

Previous generation JK Wrangler also earned ‘Marginal’ from the Institute. So: Continuing a fine tradition of premature death-dealing there. Well done, Fiat Chrysler.

Here’s what happens to your body during a crash (it’s pretty gruesome) and the truth about your airbags not deploying >>

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Blundering down under

Here in Australia, of course, our crashworthiness ratings are informed by ANCAP - which went off its meds entertainingly a few years ago now, and is currently next to useless in my view, although I’m sure they’d be inclined to whip up a quick Powerpoint presentation claiming otherwise.

Don’t ever let anybody you care about sit in a Wrangler.

Under ANCAP’s comprehensively retarded rating system, Wrangler was tested in 2019 and scored zero out of a possible eight points in the oblique pole impact test. Zero. 

And 3.89 out of eight in the offset front crash test. That’s hardly a pass either. 

Then 49 per cent for vulnerable road user protection and 51 per cent for safety assistance technology.

And yet, ANCAP’s retarded ratings delivered three stars out of five. Despite having been given one star in 2018 testing of the same model. Adding collision avoidance is not good enough.

For a vehicle that is, by any rational measurement, an emphatic safety shitbox. Call me old fashioned, but I’d suggest to Kermit the Frog, and Big Bird, Bert and Ernie, Gonzo, Miss Piggy and of course Fozzy Bear - and whoever else runs ANCAP these days - that three out of five stars is far too positive vis-a-vis the underlying nature of sincere safety shit-boxery at play in a Wrangler.

What’s the point of having five stars available if you don’t actually use zero, one and two to inform the public? 

The only stamp of approval I can think of, which Wrangler rightly deserves, would be from Charles Darwin himself. 

Consumers need to know that Death-Trap Wrangler is in fact an IQ test. If you buy one, you fail.

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