2015 Toyota RAV4, 2014 Nissan Rogue, and 2014 Subaru Forester Have Crash Test Problems

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Jan 13, 6:26AM EST · Published Jun 24, 8:53AM EDT

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2015 Toyota RAV4, 2014 Nissan Rogue, and 2014 Subaru Forester Have Crash Test Problems — © courtesy of NissanNews.com

Passenger-side, front-seat occupants of some small SUVs may be at risk based on crash tests of seven small SUV models. These IIHS crash tests showed that passengers in the 2015 Toyota Motor Corp. (NYSE: TM) RAV4, 2014 Nissan Rogue, and 2014 Subaru Forester may particularly have problems. These are not only some of the best selling brands for their parent companies, they are among the best selling cars in America

The IIHS researcher wrote:

Drivers of vehicles with good small overlap front ratings from IIHS can expect to be protected well in a frontal crash involving the left corner of the vehicle. But how would the passengers sitting next to them fare in a right-side small overlap crash? A new study shows that good protection doesn’t always extend across the front seat.

The Institute conducted 40 mph passenger-side small overlap tests on seven small SUVs with good driver-side small overlap ratings. Only one of the vehicles, the 2016 Hyundai Tucson, performed at a level corresponding to a good rating, and the others ran the gamut from poor to acceptable.

Becky Mueller, an IIHS senior research engineer and the lead author of the study described the issue:

When structural improvements are visible only on the driver-side, there are large differences in performance.But the inverse is not true. Some vehicle structures look the same on both sides, but they don’t perform the same. That’s why we can’t rely on visual analysis but need to monitor this issue and possibly begin rating vehicles for passenger-side protection.

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And, the nature of the problems:

The 2015 Toyota RAV4 and the 2014 Nissan Rogue were the only vehicles to appear asymmetrical. In the passenger-side test, the RAV4 was the worst performer. If the Institute issued ratings for passenger-side protection, the RAV4 would earn a poor rating. The Rogue would earn a marginal.

These two vehicles had the highest amount of passenger-side intrusion. Intrusion measures are important because they indicate how well the structure held up; the greater the amount of intrusion, the higher the likelihood of serious injuries.

Maximum intrusion in the passenger-side test was 13 inches more than in the driver-side test for the RAV4 and 10 inches more for the Rogue. The Rogue’s door hinge pillar tore off completely, and the RAV4’s door opened. In a real crash, an open door would leave the occupant at risk for ejection.

Two vehicles that appeared symmetrical, the 2014 Subaru Forester and the 2015 Mazda CX-5, also had substantially more intrusion in the passenger-side test than in the driver-side test.

In May, the Toyota RAV4 was the 7th best selling car or light truck in the U.S. with sales of 32,261 up 12%. Granted, this model is newer than the one tested. In May, sales of the Nissan Rogue ranked 12th among all cars and light trucks at 27,428 up 5.9%. Again, this is different from the year of the one tested. The Forester is a mainstay of the Subaru line up

No one knows exactly how the IIHS test affect sales. Toyota, Subaru, and Nissan should hope not at all

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.