HELPING BUYERS BEWARE : CONSUMER REPORTS MARKS 60 YEARS FULL OF POUNDING, PULLING, POKING PRODUCTS.

Byline: Joyce M. Rosenberg Associated Press 

Pffffffffft. It's the sound Johnny Jumper makes as he stands up. Then, pffffffffft, Johnny kneels down. His freshly-washed blue jeans strrrrrretch, but Johnny's not going out dancing now. Another pffffffffft, and Johnny goes up and down again.

And again, until Consumer Reports testers finish studying whether Johnny's deep-knee bends are sufficient to get those 230 pairs of brand-new jeans into wearable shape.

Luckily, Johnny has no ligaments or tendons to strain. He's a dummy, carrying out one of the tests that are the foundation of Consumer Reports magazine.

Consumer Reports, a bible for people trying to decide what kind of vacuum cleaner, car, mattress or shampoo to buy, marks its 60th anniversary with its May issue.

The magazine and its not-for-profit parent organization, Consumers Union, are a far cry from the 24-page issue of May 1936, with a cover story titled ``Grade A versus Grade B milk.'' But as circulation has grown from 40,367 on its first birthday to the current 4.6 million (making it the ninth-biggest U.S. magazine in terms of circulation, according to figures from Consumers Union and the Audit Bureau of Circulations), Consumer Reports' mission has changed little.

``We get to blow the smoke out of the marketplace,'' said R. David Pittle, the technical director at Consumers Union, which is also known as CU.

Consumer Reports is ``a stand-in for the reader,'' said editorial director Joel Gurin.

Consumer advocates speak glowingly of CU and its magazine.

``Without question, Consumers Union is the most important consumer organization in the world,'' said Stephen Brobeck, executive director of the Consumer Federation of America.

``Consumer Reports, for years has represented the most valuable source of information to consumers interested in purchasing products. That's because the information has been thoroughly and objectively researched and presented in a clear and understandable format.''

Of course, not everyone loves CU. The organization has been sued about a dozen times over the past 25 years, but has not lost a case, according to Pittle, who came to CU 14 years ago after serving on the Consumer Product Safety Commission under Presidents Nixon, Ford and Carter.

``We don't get sued much. We get yelled at a lot'' by manufacturers unhappy with the ratings of their products, Pittle said.

There are other publications that provide similar services as Consumer Reports, including competitor Consumers Digest. But most of the other magazines that examine products focus on specific areas such as cars or computers.

The magazine has changed to keep up with times, increasing the numbers of articles on personal health and finance to reflect the nation's growing concern with these issues, and also the growing reliance on services.

Consumer Reports also considers the ethics of the products it tests. The article on blue jeans, which appears in the May issue, includes a related story on sweatshops. An upcoming report on beer will consider the issue of marketing alcohol to teens.

``We're trying to maintain an awareness that products have a social context,'' Gurin said.

Consumers Union has 460 staff members, including the testing division, editorial staff and the people at CU's advocacy offices in Washington, San Francisco, and Austin, Texas. Advocacy staffers have appeared before Congress and state legislatures and filed amicus curiae briefs with the Supreme Court.

Consumer Reports' biggest issue is the annual auto issue in April. Other topics may be seasonal - gas grills and lawn mowers in time for summer, snow blowers for winter - or scheduled as they are ready.

Decisions on what kinds of products or services to cover are what Gurin called a collaborative effort among the various departments at Consumer Reports. Some suggestions come from the marketing and research division, which tracks buying trends. The editorial and testing staffs also are in on the decisions, and reader suggestions also play a part.

When a project begins, anonymous buyers purchase the test samples from regular stores or dealers. The products then head to the test labs - which could be a windowless room in Yonkers, the auto track in Connecticut or, in the case of lawn mowers, a custom-grown strip of grass in Florida.

CU has taken pains to build special facilities like climate-controlled rooms for conducting tests. Adjacent to the Yonkers headquarters is a small building containing the anechoic chamber - a room filled with wedge-shape fiberglass insulation used to test speakers and other audio equipment. The chamber is so quiet it's unreal; when electrical and computer tester George Irizarry clapped his hands, the sound went nowhere.

Part of the technical staff's job is to figure out how to test qualities of each product, and then build a device to do the job. That's how Johnny Jumper was born, how a conveyer belt that alternately freezes and bakes roof shingles came to be and how a contraption that tests mattresses was invented.

Pat Slaven, who supervised the blue jeans project, said Johnny was only part of the yearlong testing process. CU bought five pairs each of 46 styles of jeans, and washed and dried them over and over (that part of the test took weeks to accomplish), measured them and stretched them. Humans, including Slaven's boss (she reports he's a perfect men's 36) also tried out the jeans.

A testing project can be all-consuming. Slaven, an outgoing, earthy woman with a self-deprecating sense of humor, asked with a big smile, ``So, what can I tell you about blue jeans?'' at the start of an interview. She admitted to dreaming about blue jeans during the test.

Slaven, who says she has ``a dream job,'' has degrees in chemical engineering and textile chemistry. Other project directors and testers also have backgrounds in engineering or science.

In a testing area not far from Johnny's home, 40 shampoos and conditioners were being studied. Three sensory panelists washed, blow-dried and combed human hair samples, feeling the tresses at various points during the process to see how they felt.

Sensory panelists also test food products, evaluate TV screen images and try out razor blades (they use them at home). Panelist Lynn Meyers reported they generally don't swallow the food; they spit it out.

Employees all over the company are drawn into the process. One of the chairs in Pittle's office is part of a study of ergonomic furniture.

Pittle said he also occasionally tests cars, and was driving a Suzuki Samurai that got a ``not acceptable'' rating in 1988 on the grounds that it tended to roll over.

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3 Photos

Photo: (1-2--color) George Irizarry, an electrical and c omputer tester for Consumer Reports, demonstrates the sound-muffling power of the magazine's anechoic chamber, used to perform tests on audio equipment. A robotic dummy dubbed ``Johnny Jumper'' puts blue jeans through their paces with a series of stretching routines.

(3) Maxine Siegel, left, and Sharon Schreiber dry locks of hair while examining the properties of shampoos and conditioners at Consumer Reports' testing facility in Yonkers, N.Y.

Associated Press