The Ultimate Road Test

Belted into a 2007 dark gray Audi A3, Gene Petersen is driving ever faster. He hits 35 m.p.h., 40, then 45. He’s looking for that precise moment when velocity will help turn his car into a boat. He accelerates hard, and the thrumming of the V-6 is suddenly replaced by a churning hiss as the tires hit a carefully created and controlled pool of water. Petersen’s goal is to achieve the speed at which the tires can no longer disperse water and instead begin to hydroplane, when they stop gripping the pavement and the steering wheel becomes merely a decorative feature. Some tires disperse water better than others, and so are safer; that’s what Petersen, tire program leader for Consumer Reports magazine, and senior tire engineer Jennifer Stockburger want to find out.

Pushing a car’s tires beyond the brink of their handling abilities may be terrifying to most of us, but for Petersen, Stockburger, and the rest of the testing staff at Consumer Reports, it’s just another day’s work in the relentless quest to determine the safest and best buys in vehicles – and vehicle products, such as tires – for the 4.6 million subscribers to Consumer Reports and 2.7 million more to its website. The magazine, published by the nonprofit consumer advocacy organization Consumers Union, has its editorial offices in Yonkers, New York, but its 327-acre Auto Test Center is here in East Haddam, Connecticut, a testament to the publication’s standing as a major force in the auto industry. No other magazine that reviews cars owns an auto-testing facility or conducts evaluations in such depth.

Its reviews are so well respected – even after an embarrassing testing gaffe earlier this year involving infant car seats – that Alan Mulally, the CEO trying to revitalize foundering Ford Motor Co., visited in February. He wanted to “express his admiration for their work and listen to their opinions about Ford products,” Ford spokesman Bill Collins says.

The facility, which the magazine has used since 1988, is tucked away behind a rural residential neighborhood about 25 miles southeast of Hartford on the site of what was once the Connecticut International Dragway. The parking lot is jammed with 85 or so vehicles, some that were tested last year for this month’s annual “Auto Issue,” and some waiting to be tested for next year’s – everything from the blazing Dodge Viper to the workhorse Chevrolet Silverado pickup to the subcompact Honda Fit.

The one-story office and garage buildings are modest. What is impressive are the testing facilities, which include a vehicle-handling circuit with a 4,100-foot-long main straight, an off-road course to test SUVs and pickup trucks, specially prepared surfaces for evaluating vehicle noise, a 1.5-mile ride evaluation course, and a 100,000-square-foot vehicle dynamics area to test handling in dry and wet conditions.

There’s also a building without windows, to test headlights. Why not just test outside at night? Because the amount of ambient light varies. Engineers here are obsessed with establishing controlled conditions to ensure apples-to-apples comparisons among vehicles. That’s why the 300 tons of boulders on the rock hill are anchored in concrete – to keep the spaces between them a uniform 4 to 8 vertical inches as one SUV after another climbs over. It’s also why the properties of the asphalt are monitored every two months or so by a scientific consultant who periodically recommends resurfacing.

The water Petersen drives into for his tire test is a uniform 10 millimeters deep. There is no testing on days when it’s windy or raining because, again, there might be variations in the depth. In the Audi, Petersen is wearing a helmet and is surrounded by instruments to record the car’s speed and sideways movement. He’s focused but ho-hum calm as the car picks up speed and approaches the water. “This really is a no-brainer from a driver’s standpoint,” he says. Petersen has set the cruise control at 50 mph, and he is holding the steering wheel in a fixed position to guide the car along a yellow curve painted on the pavement. This time he’s going fast enough for liftoff. The tires are now running on the sheet of water, and, instead of following the arc, the Audi’s nose slides to the outside of the turn. For the average driver on the average road, it could spell spinout, or much worse. In Peter–sen’s hands, the Audi is back on dry pavement in seconds.

Last year, Stockburger and Petersen bought 660 tires to run 55 different models through 14 tests. In addition to hydroplaning tests, they evaluate characteristics such as tread noise, ride comfort, cornering ability, and dry and wet braking capabilities. The 22 staffers here, seven of whom are engineers, also tested 85 vehicles and estimate they drove a total of 510,000 miles. Each car goes through the same set of 50 tests and evaluations, says senior automotive test engineer Gabriel Shenhar. They cover general areas such as acceleration, braking, comfort, convenience, and fuel economy, but also address special situations – the avoidance-maneuver test, for example, helps show how well a vehicle handles when the driver suddenly encounters an obstacle. To judge comfort, Consumer Reports built a 1.5-mile “ride evaluation course,” complete with dips and potholes (after the state of Connecticut thoughtlessly began to smooth out previously bumpy public roads the testers had used).

In addition to the formal testing by the engineers, all staffers are urged to take the vehicles home, use them in their everyday lives, and fill out logbooks with their impressions, which also factor into the reports. “The actual objective testing process takes about a month,” says David Champion, senior director of the Auto Test Center, “but we live with the cars for many months to really get to know the car.”

Every aspect of the vehicle is graded on a five-point scale. Statisticians compile the test data and calculate numerical ratings for each vehicle. That determines the rankings. When the testing is finished, the engineers write up a technical report and give it to the editorial department in Yonkers.

The decision about which vehicles to test begins with Shenhar, who researches which new models are coming, which are the most popular, which haven’t been tested, and which have undergone significant engine or transmission changes that call for updated ratings. The staff then discusses his notes, reaches consensus, and takes the list to upper management for approval.

When it comes time to purchase the vehicles, all 22 staffers take turns. To make sure they don’t get factory-built ringers, just as a restaurant critic does not sit down with pen and notepad in hand, they don’t reveal that Consumer Reports is the buyer until they take delivery. The magazine purchases every product it tests, from vehicles to vacuum cleaners, using the money that comes from subscriptions. (It accepts no outside advertising.) For the fiscal year ending last May, subscription income totaled almost $187 million. Of that amount, almost $3 million was spent buying vehicles, Champion says. The $12,469 Toyota Yaris was the least expensive; the most expensive was a Mercedes-Benz SL550 two-seater, at almost $106,000. When the tests are completed, the vehicles are sold.

Despite all the care taken in the testing done here and in Yonkers, where virtually all other products are analyzed, mistakes happen. That hit home earlier this year when the magazine conducted its first-ever side-impact-collision tests of rear-facing infant car seats. The East Haddam site doesn’t have crash-test facilities, so the trials were handled by an outside company – about 11 percent of Consumer Reports’ specialized tests are – and they received national attention. So many of the seats – 10 of the 12 tested – failed so disastrously that parents wondered if their children were safe back there, and seat manufacturers were both puzzled and furious. Within two weeks, the magazine, facing mounting criticism, withdrew its findings after learning that because of a miscommunication, the test was conducted at speeds of more than 70 m.p.h. instead of the intended 38 m.p.h. It was a stunning and embarrassing error for such a proud and respected organization.

Consumers Union, which was chartered in 1936 and has been testing ever since, responded with the same seriousness with which it evaluates its vehicles: It hired two nationally known safety researchers to investigate what went wrong, issued a public report, and outlined the steps it would take in the future – among them developing tests in closer consultation with experts from academia, government, and industry, and reexamining results that don’t jibe with real-world observations – to prevent similar errors from recurring.

Watching staff members conduct their evaluations, it’s obvious that they enjoy their work. And who wouldn’t? Stockburger says people imagine she has one thrilling day after another torturing tires and sliding cars through turns. It’s not quite like that, but she makes it clear she loves her job, which not only helps consumers but allows her to work both indoors and out and, oh yeah, handle some nice wheels occasionally.

“Who else gets to drive 85 different brand-new models?” she asks. Still, she acknowledges that parts of even this job can get boring. Like performing dry-braking tests on 40 sets of tires, which, for anyone who drives Interstate 93 at 5 p.m. on a weekday, is a familiar experience. “You are just on the brakes all day long,” Stockburger says. “You are out here just stopping straight from 60 m.p.h. time after time for three weeks. Dry braking is looking pretty boring by that point.”

Unlike the variety involved with dry-brake testing of individual vehicles, for tire testing, the car doesn’t change – staffers use the same vehicle over and over. “You’re in the Audi all day long,” Stockburger says.

Driving an Audi A3 for an entire day. Oh, the suffering.