Consumer Reports Yanks Approval From 3 Toyotas

It was a good news/bad news kind of day for Toyota. The good news? The Japanese automaker beat GM in sales for the second straight quarter, moving 2.5 million vehicles between July and September, it announced today, according to Bloomberg. The bad news? Consumer Reports yanked its recommendation of three Toyota cars—the Camry, Prius V, and RAV4—citing new, lousy crash test results. The Audi A4 also got hit with the downgrade.

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety has a new test that assesses what a vehicle does when only its front corner hits something—which is the case in about a quarter of frontal collisions. Out of more than 60 vehicles tested, only 13 rated "poor," and only the three Toyotas and the Audi were on Consumer Reports' list. "Honestly, we don't take this lightly, but virtually every vehicle now in the family sedan category has been tested and the only one that has gotten a 'poor' is the Camry," the magazine's auto testing director tells Reuters. The move comes on the heels of another Toyota recall, this time involving air bags and spiders. (More Toyota stories.)