February 24, 1997

MUCH MALIGNED ISUZU TROOPER RETURNS

BY TERRY PARKHURST
Special to the Journal

Just when you thought it was safe to return to the highway, there it is: the 1997 Isuzu Trooper.

Yes, it is the same vehicle that Consumer Reports thought so unsafe that they said it shouldn't be allowed on the road.

But there are people, including a former editor of 4-Wheel and Off-Road magazine, who feel that the handling characteristics of the Trooper and its mechanical twin, the Acura SLX, are no better or worse than any other sport utility vehicle.

"I use Consumer Reports to buy my toasters, not my cars," says Peter duPre, former editor of 4-Wheel and Off-Road magazine, now residing in Poulsbo. "The way I might show you how to do a lane-change maneuver is not the way they would show you how to do a lane-change maneuver. Their tests give the wrong results

The 1997 Isuzu Trooper

During the Consumer Reports tests, a driver steered a Trooper quickly to the left, to the right and then back to the left at 35-to-45 miles-per-hour. This maneuver was supposed to simulate the way a driver might swerve to avoid hitting a child or an animal. Both the right front wheels of the tested Trooper lifted off the ground. Videotape and still photos of this appeared within days on television and in various magazines and newspapers during last August.

"They executed four complete turns-of-the-wheel in a very short period of time," asserts Dan McCue, of Freeman-McCue Public Relations, who handles Isuzu in this country. "It amounts to 990 degrees in 1.7 seconds."

Peter duPre recalls the last time Consumer Reports got involved in a flap over vehicle safety, back in 1988 over the Suzuki Samurai. The magazine asserted that the Samurai flipped over in sudden turns. Sales of the little rig plummeted and it was pulled from the American market in 1995.

Suzuki still has a lawsuit pending against Consumer Reports.

"We drove a Samurai in some road tests in mountainous areas and out in the desert outside Los Angeles. If there had been a problem, we'd have noticed it," says duPre. Consumer Reports did their testing of the Samurai with outriggers attached (like training wheels); it completely threw the weight distribution off. So I question their methodology on the Trooper."

A drive in the 1997 Isuzu Trooper during a recent Northwest Automotive Press Association event did not seem any less safe than any other sport-utility vehicle -- either on or off road.

Mechanically, the Trooper/SLX is much the same as it was in 1996. Ground clearance -- one possible measure of instability when cornering -- is 8.5 to 8.6 inches at the differential. It is not much more than say, the Mitsubishi Montero (7.5 inches for the Montero LS and 7.1 inches for the Montero SR) which Consumer Reports didn't mention as unstable.

Four-wheel anti-lock brakes are now standard equipment on the 1997 Trooper. The front suspension setup is still torsion bars, in connection with unequal length upper-and-lower control arms. Wheel travel is 7.5 inches.

The rear suspension is a four-member, multi-link system, in connection with a solid rear axle.

The rear suspension works like this: a tubular center link connects to the top of the axle housing to counter the axle's rotation under acceleration or braking; and a long, lateral rod provides alignment under cornering loads or on rough roads. Running a Trooper on a particularly rough road in the shadow of Mount Hood showed this setup to capable and tenacious but certainly not unsafe.

The Trooper's strongest point is its engine. It is an aluminum block V6 displacing 193 cubic inches and putting out 190 horsepower (at 5,600 rpm) and 188 foot-pounds of torque (at 4,000 rpm). It gave good acceleration on the highway and plenty of negotiating power on dirt roads.

The four-wheel drive setup is a bit creaky for a vehicle in this price range (low to mid $30,000s). You have to use a lever on the floor, just to the right of the floor-mounted automatic shifter. It is a "shift-on-the-fly" setup, meaning a driver can shift between two-wheel and four-wheel drive at any speed below 60 miles per hour.

The Trooper is built on a separate steel box section frame with seven cross members. The frame rails are completely enclosed and there are also four different skid plates to protect the underbody from rocks.

And what of the steering? It consists of a recirculating ball, two-joint setup. The power steering is engine-speed sensing, meaning there is less boost at speed, more at lower speeds for parallel parking and off-road use. Turning lock-to-lock requires 3.7 turns of the wheel. While the tested Trooper was never taken through the maneuvers that Consumer Reports did, it did not feel at all unstable.

Because of the comfort level of the new generation of sport utilities, drivers can perhaps be lulled into a false sense of security. The Acura SLX, the Trooper's cousin, comes with faux wood trim (that looks amazingly real) and leather seats. Both rigs come with heated front seats.

Both the Trooper and SLX offer 90.2 cubic feet of cargo space, with the second seat down. The area in back would allow a large dog carrier.

This reporter used an SLX last August to ferry computer pieces around. The important thing to remember is these rigs aren't sports cars or even sports sedans.

"Sport utilities are (basically) trucks, so they corner like trucks," reminds Peter duPre.

American Isuzu has noted that the Department of Transportation has never received any complaints about rollover accidents for its 1995 or '96 Troopers. Also of note is the fact that the Isuzu Rodeo won the AlCan Winter Rally last year, an arduous rally up through the Canadian Yukon and into Alaska.