How did Citroen not catch this little defect while the car went through initial testing? It's like how Lexus has been selling an SUV here that drifts into oblivion when you let off the gas at moderate speeds. How did they miss that? From my understanding car companies put cars through the most extreme tests they can come up with to make sure all the what ifs are covered. Apparently not.
Well, according to Citroen they said that they never subject their cars to a manoeuvre that violent, because it's generally more of a violent move than the majority of road users are capable of. The elk test involves a full turn of the wheel with crossed arms into another full turn the other way and then back again. I suspect many drivers would simply spin the car on the first turn of the wheel. Or brake instead of turning.
As for the Lexus/Toyota SUV thing, that test was
not at moderate speeds. In the video, the car is travelling at 60mph and then swung again with a big armfull of lock and lifting completely off the gas to provoke it. The test is dumb because it's replicating a deliberately dangerous manoeuvre, of the sort that only a complete idiot would find themselves in. It's not a safety test at all. The consumer organisation that carried out the test mentioned some ridiculous comment about it being the sort of situation you might find yourself in on a motorway off-ramp - when off-ramps are
designed to get you to slow down before you join a minor road (just like on-ramps give you the space to
gain speed). If you're barrelling into one at 60mph then it's your own fault if you roll, not the car's.
It's a body on frame SUV with fat tyres, it's not designed to cope with a test like that and you'd be hard pressed to find any other similar vehicle that would respond any differently. The Lexus didn't even hint at going up onto two wheels either. They only said it
might roll if you hit a curb during the turn. If you do 60mph and you're lifting off
and you're hitting an inside curb, then again it's your own damn fault.
I'm not into my conspiracy theories but it just seems like another way for the US auto industry to have a pop at Toyota.
I'd like to add that I'm not defending a car if it's genuinely unstable, but there's a difference between provoking a car in a more extreme manner than it'd ever be provoked on the road (the Nemo is essentially a city van, for example. It'll barely ever get over 30mph for most of it's life) and it simply being unstable.
