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Safety - USA - Automakers use tough road tests to drive out defects in new models
DEATH VALLEY NATIONAL PARK, Calif.,USA -Los Angeles Times, by John O'Dell -22 Oct 2005: -- Each year automakers introduce about a dozen all-new passenger vehicles, while a hundred or so other models are delivered with major changes to transmissions, air conditioning, lights, suspensions, even door seals. The typical car or truck has about 3,000 parts, and automakers test new pieces individually, often with computer simulations or in laboratories. But ultimately these pieces must be bolted onto a car and put on the road to find out how they all work -- or don't -- by exposing them to extreme bumps, bangs, heat, cold, dirt and damp... Toyota has more than 1,000 engineers and technicians focusing on extreme testing, and Ford Motor Co. has about 1,500 test engineers. Other automakers have similar staffs. Their extreme road tests have pinpointed air filters that let dust into passenger cabins, brake parts that overheat and crumble, and wiring harnesses that fray and crack in extreme cold... To run these tests, carmakers set up hot-weather test tracks in Arizona and cold-weather facilities in Northern Canada... Extreme road tests are tough on vehicles, but cold-weather testing also can strain engineers working in these remote winter locations...
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