Suv buyers guide: getting the most reliability and safety for your buck

When it comes to SUVs, (Sport Utility Vehicles) most people are looking mainly for two standout qualities: reliability and safety.

When it comes to SUVs, (Sport Utility Vehicles) most people are looking mainly for two standout qualities: reliability and safety.

Sport Utility Vehicles, or SUVs, are more popular than ever. Whether it’s the American driver’s obsession with big, powerful vehicles, or the long history of dependability and safety, SUV popularity is likely here to stay. If you’re in the market for a new SUV, however, how can you look past the commercial hype to find the safest and most reliable vehicle for your money?

It’s easy to get caught up in the showroom sales pitch; everyone’s been there, in a new car dealership, when the enthusiastic salesman delivers a sparkling and compelling soliloquy on the benefits of this or that new four-wheeled wonder. But if you’re looking for a high-rated SUV, you need to forget about the salesman, as well as the bright, shiny commercials on TV. To land a Landrover or Lexus with the most safety and dependability, you must consult the consumer guides, for it is only within these that we find true brand bias to be absent.

There are more than a few consumer car guides out there, and you’ve probably seen them on the newsstand. With names like Car and Driver and Motor Trend, these publications test drive and rate vehicles for performance. However, I am partial to the long-trusted magazine, Consumer Reports, which takes no advertising dollars and has a well-respected legacy as a top, non-bias source of consumer information.

Consumer Reports publishes an annual car guide, and it has become one of the vehicle industry’s leading barometers of vehicle quality. Although ratings change from year to year, it is easy to use Consumer Reports as a guideline to determining the potential dependability and safety of your chose SUV. Let’s take a look at how Consumer Reports rates vehicles, what is important in the ratings, and how you might use this information to determine your purchase. (Remember that although we are using Consumer Reports as our source, similar ratings in these different criteria are standard components of any SUV analysis. The following categories are universal points when it comes to vehicle ratings.)

How do Consumer Reports and other motor industry analysts determine safety? Here we find two components of a rating to be of particular importance: accident avoidance and crash protection. After all, if you can avoid an accident in the first place, you will be safer in your SUV; if you do happen to crash, how the vehicle holds up is critical.

Of paramount importance in an SUV is its braking capacity. Many automotive analysts rightly place a premium on braking, so you’ll want to be sure that the SUV you choose is highly rated in this area, first and foremost. Other important accident avoidance features include handling and tire gripping, as well as visibility. Combine all four of these criteria, according to Consumer Reports, and the safest Sport Utility Vehicles are the ones that rate highly in all categories, helping the motorist to avoid an accident in the first place.

As far as crash protection goes, the second vital part of our SUV safety measurement is something that is actually available from the government. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration issues full-frontal crash and side-crash tests. Since a vehicle’s structure is based on design, an SUV can occasionally come off the assembly line with certain flaws that can only be revealed by independent tests. A strong recommendation is made that you obtain these government crash test results for the most recent model of SUV you are looking to purchase. Many of these statistics are now available online, of course, so check there or at your local library for the numbers you need.

One concern of the larger Sport Utility Vehicles in particular is rollover, as high-sitting vehicles are at a slightly higher risk for flipping. The good news is that rollover tests are constantly being improved, according to Consumer Reports, and the government now provides a myriad of data for SUV performance when hitting curbs or wheels start to slide or spread upon impact. Put simply, bigger SUVs that may be super-safe in head on and side collisions may get really banged up in a rollover crash, so be sure to check these figures as well.

Once you have determined the safety rating of your chosen SUV, you can move to the dependability category. For reliability, Consumer Reports and other vehicle ratings publications often use owner surveys; by asking actual owners about the problems they’ve encountered, the analysts say, they can then determine the true reliability of a vehicle.

Easy enough, right? But what specific SUV qualities make one vehicle more reliable than another? Consumer Reports and other publications examine reliability in terms of trouble areas. By evaluating individually each area of a vehicle that can go bad, an automotive analyst can figure the potential for breakdown – and, of course, its resulting repair costs.

In this respect, SUVs are very much like their lower-riding cousins, the basic cars. By checking the ratings on an SUV’s engine, transmission, suspension, exhaust and exterior (or body), you can determine a very clear overall picture of your potential buy. If your particular choice is four wheel drive, then it is critical that you obtain a rating for the drive system. Although Consumer Reports mentions that most vehicles are not rated for drive system due to the low probability of breakdown in this area, it is vital that you determine if your potential four wheel drive vehicle model has had a history of problems in the drive system. Precisely because it is a much overlooked criterion that can get lost in the shuffle – and that can get you lost amid a pile of mechanic’s bills, should it go bad - the drive system rating is worth searching for.

What if you’re after a used vehicle? Happily, there exists a dependability report for all kinds of used SUVs. For their part, Consumer Reports defines SUVs as Good Bets, Models to Avoid, and the reprehensibly, consistently low-rated Repeat Offenders. By identifying trends in poor dependability SUVs, analysts can determine trends in used vehicles, name specific trouble spots like body rust or braking failures, and tell you what to look for in a used SUV.

So we see that by looking at specific SUV criteria, from four wheel drive system dependability to crash and rollover tests, and individual factors like tire gripping and visibility, you can gain unique insights into a safe and dependable vehicle. Many Americans are willing to pay more for an SUV based on these perceptions; turning that perception into a reality takes a little determination and research, but it will also help you choose the best vehicle in the category of Sport Utility Vehicle.