& CONCLUSIONSVibration qualification tests are currently indispensable for vehicle manufacturers and their suppliers. Carmakers' specifications are therefore conceived to challenge the mechanical endurance of car components face to numerous inservice detrimental phenomena: fatigue damage, shocks or accidents, and mechanical degradation. The vibration signals used in the automotive industry are of various types (random, harmonic, shock pulses) and are becoming more and more complex (multi-random, swept-sine-on-random etc.), covering different frequency ranges. With automotive business requiring new product development to be faster, a robust methodology that permits to easily compare and quantify the severity of a vibration specification would be advantageous from a design of reliability perspective.The objective of this paper is to illustrate a set of tools that can be applied to the comparison of vibration specification signals used to validate the mechanical endurance of car components undergoing stressing vibration loadings. The paper will describe different criteria and new innovative methodologies adopted to perform the required comparison, from quick and effective specification analysis, to even more complex purposes (for example when building a new generic vibration signal for early product development).Following a brief theoretical introduction, several case studies will show practical applications of the methodology.