Toyota, safety group squabble over ratings

By Insure.com

Toyota and the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) traded words this week in a dust-up over the testing institute's 2010 Top Safety Picks awards list.

The IIHS announced its winners Wednesday and noted that Toyota didn't have a single model in the list: "Toyota and its Lexus and Scion subsidiaries had a strong showing in 2009 with 11 winners but were shut out for 2010," the institute said.

Firing back, Toyota issued a statement the same day, reacting to IIHS' news release and its comments on Toyota that the institute put under the subheading "Missing the mark."

"IIHS' statement that Toyota was shut out for 2010 is extreme and misleading, considering there are 38 Toyota, Lexus and Scion models, and only three were tested for roof strength by IIHS: Camry, RAV4 and Yaris," the automaker said.

No Toyotas offered

IIHS Senior Vice President Anne Fleming said Thursday that she wasn't surprised by the response. "This is the way automakers often react," she said, and called Toyota's statement disingenuous.

"We told every automaker, including Toyota, there would be this new criterion for roof strength and to flag the vehicles that they would like us to test," Fleming said. "Toyota did not come forth with any requests. Usually the reason automakers don't flag vehicles is they know the vehicles wouldn't pass."

Nineteen cars and eight SUVs made the IIHS top-pick list for 2010, the first year that winning a spot also required good performance in a roof strength test to measure protection in a rollover.

Winners also had to earn a "good" rating for protecting people in front, side and rear crashes, as well as for electronic stability control, which research shows significantly reduces crash risk. This was the second time IIHS raised the bar for winners since naming its first Top Safety Pick winners, in 2005.

Not all models tested

The institute says that because of time constraints, it can't test every vehicle on the market in the first year after adopting a new safety criterion. So it selects groups of models to test and asks each automaker to flag any other of its vehicles it wants tested for consideration. This year, IIHS tested all small SUVs and midsized cars for roof strength and any other models automakers suggested.

Fleming said the institute routinely gets requests to test particular models, but she couldn't say whether most automakers make testing requests. The institute is open with automakers about its testing criteria, and manufacturers' representatives are welcome to come, and are usually present when their vehicles are tested, she said.

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Toyota's small SUV, the RAV4, earned an "acceptable" grade for roof strength -- not good enough to win a Top Safety Pick spot. Its midsize vehicle, the Camry, earned a good rating under the new criterion, but rated marginal for protection against whiplash injury in rear-crash safety testing.

Like Toyota, four other previous winners didn't win spots this year: BMW, Mazda, Mitsubishi and Saab.

In its statement, Toyota noted that all its vehicles meet or exceed federal safety standards for front and side impact, roof-crush resistance and rollover protection.

Car insurance prices are not affected by crash-test results, but the tests can help consumers compare models when shopping for new cars. Car insurance companies set rates based on a model's claims history rather than on crash tests.

This article was reported by Barbara Marquand for Insure.com.