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Gorilla & the Stain Queen
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May 23, 2000: 6:10 a.m. ET
Consumer Reports testing routines put products through their paces
By Staff Writer Rob Lenihan
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NEW YORK (CNNfn) - Thump—Crunch—Bang! A suitcase is riding in the belly of the Gorilla and things are not going well. The Gorilla, a kind of sadistic variation on the clothes dryer, lifts and drops the luckless luggage with the brutal efficiency of a medieval torturer. Scheduled for 1,000 revolutions, it is clear this bit of baggage won't go the distance.
"It gives the bag a pretty good beating," said Bert Papenburg, director of testing for chemical and textiles for Consumers Union. "It tests the overall durability of the bag, such as the external zippers, handles and wheels." 
Just about everything at this Yonkers, N.Y., facility gets a pretty good beating. Whether it's cars, windshield wipers, televisions or condoms, someone at CU is likely to be testing the item to see if it does what its makers claims it does.
In this product boot camp, the slickest ad campaign ever dreamed up on Madison Avenue is no defense. If you make something consumers buy, it had better be all it can be. Whatever the results of the testing -- good, bad or ugly -- you will be reading about it an upcoming issue of CU's publication Consumer Reports.
This kind of candor has angered some manufacturers who claim the non-profit organization can make or break a product. CU has recently emerged from a court battle with Isuzu where both sides claimed victory. Despite the controversy, CU executives vow the organization will go on doing what's it has been doing since Consumer Reports first went to press in 1936.
"We're not anti-business," said R. David Pittle, senior vice president and technical director. "We're pro-consumer."
The Stain Queen
Stain removal may not have the marquee value of new cars or electronic doodads. Until you spill something on your favorite sweater. That's where project leader Pat Slaven comes in.
"Nobody thinks about a stain until it happens," Slaven said.
Among her many duties, Slaven -- dubbed "the Stain Queen" -- tests stain removal products to see if they can make your clothes look as good as new or not. Her approach is scientific. To her, that hideous blotch isn't a stain; it's just a dye in the wrong place. 
"That's the yin and the yang of stains," said Slaven, "When you're trying to put color on something, you want it to stick. When you get color on something by accident, you want it off."
Slaven, who has displayed her talents on national television, is no quitter. While in high school, her pen leaked all over one of her mother's favorite upholstered chairs. Nearly 20 years later, Slaven, now armed with the ultimate weapon -knowledge -- returned home, and banished the unsightly blotch.
"It was wonderful," she said.
In her experience, Slaven has found that lesser known products and even home remedies have done a better job than some of the heavily advertised items.
What's the worst stain she's encountered? An oil stain that's been run through the dryer. What do you do when stains happen?
"Treat it as soon as possible," said Slaven, a contributor to the book How to Clean Practically Anything. "Blot don't rub. Start from the outer edge and work towards the center. And expect it to take a while."
Testing, testing
Now follow us into the anechoic chamber, where echoes do not exist. Here, fiberglass wedges line the walls and ceiling so that loudspeakers may be tested. If you close the door and wait a bit, you'll hear the sound of your own bodily functions.
"Your body makes quite a bit of noise," said Evon Beckford, director of testing for electronics. "You just never hear it."
Beckford has seen the explosive change that has marked the gadget industry. He has seen how a home theater really requires an entire home to accommodate it. Display products, he said, are getting bigger and bigger, while the personal products are going in the opposite direction and getting smaller. 
"Products have become more complicated," Beckford said. "That's because they are software-driven. The holy grail today is content on the Internet. It's either download stuff to my device or I acquire content on my personal device and sent it to my auntie or whoever."
In 1998, CU conducted about 120 product tests with a testing budget of $18 million. CU does not accept any products from manufacturers for testing. Instead, the items are bought right off the shelves or off the lot by a small army of 160 shoppers in 31 states.
"We don't want any ringers," Papenburg said. "We want to be able to buy the same things consumers buy. We don't want anything that's been prepared for us."
Where it started.
Consumers Union was born out of controversy. The organization can trace its roots back to engineer Frederick Schlink, who, in 1926, formed a consumer club that met in the basement of a White Plains, N.Y., church and distributed mimeographed lists of products that were either good values or "products one might well avoid." The club developed into Consumers Research Inc.
When Schlink fired three workers who tried to form a union in 1935, about 40 others staged a walk out. Schlink responded with strikebreakers and armed guards, and the striking workers created their own organization, Consumers Union of United States. 
The first issue of Consumer Reports featured a study on breakfast cereals, a report on seven inexpensive brands of stockings, and the results on the differences between Grade A and Grade B milk. In 1940, CU, pegged as a Communist outfit, made it to the House Un-American Activities Committee's list of suspected organizations.
The magazine saw some dips in circulation over the years, but Consumer Reports now has 4.3 million subscribers, while its online offspring has 400,000 paid subscribers.
Consumers Union is governed by a board of 18 directors, who are elected by CU members. CU's income comes form the sale of its publications and service, from individual contributions and from some noncommercial grants. Neither CU nor Consumer Reports accepts outside advertising, nor do they grant permission for commercial use of the organization's name or test results. Any company violating this rule receives a cease-and-desist letter.
CU claims an unblemished record in court cases brought by disgruntled manufacturers. In a dispute with Bose Corp., a lower court ruling against CU was reversed on appeal and the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the reversal. In 1998, CU issued a rare correction for a story about pet food, after the Iams Company, which makes the Iams and Eukanuba brands, showed CU "compelling data questioning our findings of low levels of potassium in some of their products."
And then there was the Trooper case...
The Trooper storm
In August 1996, Consumer Reports warned that two sport-utility vehicles -- the 1996 Acura SLX and the 1995-96 Isuzu Trooper -- were unsafe because they could easily roll over. Three weeks later, Isuzu shot back, charging the magazine's test procedure was unscientific and the results were flawed.
The issue went to the courts, with Isuzu claiming the report had caused Trooper sales to plummet and asking for $242 million in damages. 
Last month, a federal jury ruled that in every case but one, Consumer Reports did not realize it was making false statements when it called the Trooper dangerous. However, the jury also said eight of the 17 statements in question were false and one demonstrated "reckless disregard" for the truth.
The jury did not award any damages to Isuzu, but, according to news  reports, eight of the 10 jurors wanted to award the carmaker as much as $25 million. The jury foreman told a reporter "we couldn't find clear and convincing evidence that Consumers Union intentionally set out to trash the Trooper."
The decision had enough room to allow both sides the chance raise their arms in victory. 
"If no money was transferred from us to them, they didn't win," Pittle said. "The judge ordered them to reimburse us for many of the court costs."
Andrew White, Isuzu's lead attorney, said the carmaker was challenging the cost award. He added that money was not the key issue in the case, but rather the vindication of the vehicle and Isuzu's name.
"We were very pleased with the jury's verdict and after talking to the jury we were even more pleased," White said. "Clearly they understood the statements we were challenging were false."
White said the case illustrates the "make or break" power that Consumer Reports wields.
"Every other reviewer/tester found this vehicle to be totally fine," he said. "The same vehicle is selling just fine. We believe this case brought to the public and the court a lot of evidence of uncontrolled arrogance."
Pittle said Consumer Reports will continue working on behalf of the people it represents: consumers.
"It's not what we do, it's what the products do," he said. "We will continue to test products in an independent manner and report the results. That's what people depend on us for." 
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