More than 50 percent of the Durango body structure was made from high-strength and even ultra high-strength steel along with other leading edge technologies to help improve safety and security and maintain the long-term integrity of the vehicle.
Quality comes from integrity. Inner and outer rail reinforcements help protect occupants from intrusion during impact. Heavy gauge metal is optimally placed for increased performance. To mimic real-world travels, Dodge engineers used extensive validation on a road test simulator.
How far did we go to put Durango to the test? 6 million customer-equivalent miles were accumulated on the all-new 3.6L Pentastar® V6 engine using dynamometers. 5.25 million customer-equivalent miles were accumulated through road and road simulator tests.
Durango has a unibody structure that is more than 25 percent stiffer than its predecessor. The end result is a vehicle with crossover versatility, SUV capability and performance.
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High-strength steel
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High-strength steel was used in the front and rear structural cross members to help improve driving dynamics by integrating the suspension with the body - reducing the flex when compared with the previous body-on-frame design.
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- Durability Testing
The 2011 Durango was durability tested for 6 million customer equivalent miles. In order to make a tight vehicle that performs beyond your expectations, engineers put Durango prototypes through a punishing set of tests on a road test simulator to replicate a wide range of on-road and off-road driving surfaces. The simulator puts a lifetime of wear-and-tear on a vehicle in about a month's time.
- Acid dipped
The 2011 Durango was subjected to an equivalent of 100,000 miles / 10-year simulation of corrosion.
- Torture tested
To qualify the new Durango as worthy of the name, we torture tested it in some of the toughest environments around, including hot trips through the burning Arizona desert, the various elevations of West Virginia, the infamous "Tail of the Dragon" winding roads in North Carolina and in the frigid temperatures of northern Minnesota.
- Quality is quiet
To silence the whoosh of wind at highway speeds, we spent a thousand hours in our wind tunnel testing and retesting refinements to improve aerodynamics and dramatically reduce conversation-robbing noise, vibration, and harshness.
A drag coefficient of approximately 0.37 enables an aerodynamic improvement of more than 14 percent compared with its predecessor, contributing to a quieter interior and improved fuel efficiency.
