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Edward Lapham is the executive editor of Automotive News. His writes commentaries for Automotive News online every Monday, Wednesday and Thursday. His commentaries for WJR radio, 760 am, in Detroit appear online every Tuesday and Friday.
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By Edward Lapham
Automotive News / March 01, 2004
March 3-- If you haven't seen the March issue of Consumer Reports, you may not realize that the magazine is still at war with Suzuki. Or, more to the point, Suzuki is still at war with Consumers Union, which publishes Consumer Reports.
The war involves a 1988 product review of the Suzuki Samurai SUV, which the magazine judged to be "not acceptable" because of a propensity to tip in sharp turns.
Jim Guest, president of Consumers Union, lays out his version of the fight in the March issue and asks readers to express their concern about the matter before it finally gets to trial, probably this year. Guest suggests that readers write to Rick Suzuki, president of American Suzuki Motor Corp., and Rick Wagoner, CEO of General Motors, which owns 20 percent of Suzuki Motor Corp. of Japan.
Growing significance?
What started out as a legal battle over the reputation of a defunct product that hasn't been sold here since 1995 is being cast as something much larger.
Supporters of Consumer Reports paint it as a First Amendment and public safety issue. They say that if Suzuki prevails, publications could be stifled from doing the kind of product reviews that protect and inform consumers.
Suzuki claims that the cloud hanging over the Samurai still casts a shadow over its entire product line.
It's not unusual for automakers - or other manufacturers - to take exception to a product review published in Consumer Reports, even though the magazine is acknowledged to have among the highest editorial standards for testing products. For example, when the magazine's tests determined that the Plymouth Horizon/Dodge Omni duo had a control problem in tight maneuvers, there was some sniping by Chrysler Corp.
Let's face it, people don't like to be told their baby is ugly - or unsafe - especially when they have a strong commercial interest in the tyke.
A feud for the ages
But Suzuki's campaign against Consumer Reports makes the Hatfield-McCoy feud look like a lovers' spat.
It goes back 16 years. Consumer Reports panned the Samurai in 1988 - it wasn't the first or the last published report to do so. In 1996, a year after American Suzuki stopped selling the Samurai, Suzuki sued the magazine, claiming that Consumer Reports had rigged the tests to deliberately tip the vehicle just to create headlines and sell magazines.
In 2000, a trial judge tossed the case due to insufficient evidence. But Suzuki couldn't let it go. It appealed, and a closely divided Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco reinstated the case. Yes, that Ninth Circuit, the same one that last October found the words "under God" to be offensive and unconstitutional in the Pledge of Allegiance.
The Supreme Court refused to stop it, so it's off to a jury trial.
Heads I win, tails you lose
What's crazy is that Suzuki can't win, even if it prevails in court.
If Suzuki loses, the case will damn the Samurai. Suzuki will have wasted millions in legal fees, defending a product it no longer sells. It will have succeeded in again dragging its own brand through the mud in a courtroom - and the press - just as it is gearing up to triple its annual U.S. sales to 200,000 in 2007.
Most Suzuki buyers don't remember the Samurai. Many weren't even in school when the review ran in Consumer Reports. But this lawsuit and the publicity it engenders will make sure that everyone knows. And even if Suzuki prevails, how many will believe the automaker anyway?
It's unlikely that a courtroom victory by Suzuki would scare off other automotive consumer publications that publish product reviews. Ethical people who buy ink by the barrel and have nothing to fear aren't scared off that easily.
This lawsuit is nothing more than a vindictive attempt to punish Consumer Reports for doing its job. That's unconscionable. It's also evidence that Suzuki is either getting some bad legal and public relations advice, or its executives are too blinded by vitriol to see the facts.
Either way, Suzuki and its dealers are losers.
