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Traditionally, vehicle durability cracks have been treated to be local problems as a result of poor designs of notches, welds, holes, corners or reinforcements. The problems were usually found and fixed at a late design stage which often resulted in weight and cost penalties for a vehicle program. However, in many instances, the local problems mentioned above are simply the consequence of a poor global design. The global problems can generally be grouped into three categories: stress induced fatigue problems due to excessive global stresses as a result of body structural discontinuities, load induced fatigue problems due to excessive loads input to a body as a result of suspension designs, and vibration induced fatigue problems due to unfavorable structural resonance. The current paper presents a CAE analysis process which can be used at the upfront design stage to assess vehicle durability performances from a global design point of view.