Tests Make Deep Impression on Mazda

Stung by a report last week that the bumpers on its redesigned 1999 Protege subcompact are woefully inferior to competitors’ when it comes to protecting the car from low-speed crash damage, Mazda Motor Corp. has launched a campaign to bolster the bumpers for the 2000 model year.

“Our engineers did stand up and take notice,” Irvine-based Mazda North American Operations spokesman Brian Betz said Monday of the unusually swift response. “It was a real eye-opener, and we have initiated changes already.”

The crash tests by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety rated the Protege--an important entry-level car for the Japanese auto maker--worst in a field of nine cars and minivans for damage in a series of 5-mph front and rear crashes into poles and barriers.

While the top-rated Jetta sedan from Volkswagen of Germany sustained an average of $256 in damage in the four crashes, the Mazda Protege averaged $1,152 worth of crumpled sheet metal.

The results do not indicate that there is a safety problem--all of the bumpers tested meet federal standards for passenger protection. But they do spotlight a major dollars-and-cents issue, especially for car owners in urban areas, where insurance is increasingly expensive and where even minor bumps that occur in heavy commuter traffic can result in thousands of dollars in repairs.

Cars with weak bumpers “historically finish up with higher insurance rates,” said Brian O’Neill, president of the Arlington, Va.-based Insurance Institute. “It might not be much in the middle of Montana, but in Los Angeles [the results] could mean hundreds of dollars” in higher annual insurance premiums, he said.

That’s especially true for the Protege because it is aimed at young buyers, who typically pay the highest insurance premiums.

The average damage to the Proteges in the insurance institute tests amounts to nearly 10% of the $11,970 list price of the base model.

“Designing effective bumpers is no great engineering challenge, but it needs to be a priority or else we’ll see the kind of inferior design that’s on the new Protege,” O’Neill said when the test results were released last week.

Told Monday of Mazda’s speedy decision to redesign the bumpers, O’Neill said he is delighted. In the past, he said, auto makers often scoffed at institute test results.

“They used to say to us, ‘Go away, you’re irrelevant,’ but increasingly when we pinpoint a poor performer we get a pretty fast response,” he said.

The insurance research group cited cars by Hyundai Motor Co. of South Korea and Mitsubishi Motor Corp. of Japan as success stories--both did far better this year because of modifications inspired by poor finishes in previous crash tests.

Betz said the problem with the bumpers on the ’99 Protege was caused by a switch in materials aimed at improving fuel economy. The previous-generation Protege used an aluminum beam and foam energy-absorbing material behind the rear bumper to help minimize damage in a crash. But the redesigned ’99 model uses a beam made of honeycomb plastic--a beam that snapped when the car was backed into a steel pole at 5 mph.

Mazda officials said they hope to have sturdier bumpers ready for installation when the 2000 model Protege goes into production in August.

Betz, Mazda’s chief product spokesman in the U.S., said he did not have any information about the cost of the redesign but added that he did not believe it would be significant.

He said Mazda does not plan to change bumpers on its 1999 models, because they meet federal safety standards. The company has received no consumer complaints and only a few inquiries since results of the bumper test were announced, he said.

Mazda introduced the 1999 Protege in October and had sold 21,412 through February, up about 30% from last year. The cars account for a third of Mazda’s U.S. sales.

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Protege Problem

Mazda’s Protege racked up the most expensive damages in a series of crashes at 5 miles per hour. Tests included two collisions from the front and two from the back into a pole and barriers. Average damage for each of four tests:

Mazda Protege: $1,152

Hyundai Sonata: $651

Ford Windstar: $429

Saab 9-3: $421

Mitsubishi Galant: $418

Hyundai Elantra: $406

Nissan Quest: $278

Honda Odyssey: $266

Volkswagen Jetta: $256

Source: Insurance Institute for Highway Safety