January 21, 1986

Like to tinker with cars? If so, you are four times more likely to buy a pickup truck than someone who never looks under the hood. Drive only because you have to? That makes you almost twice as likely to own an imported car than someone who regards a twisting road as a driving challenge. These insights are part of what makes J. D. Power & Associates one of the best-known voices in automotive research. As an independent market research firm, the Power organization has attracted attention both because of its concentration on the automotive market and because of its rankings on new-car quality and consumer satisfaction with the auto companies. Its insights into car-buying habits are drawn from a study on the subject that looks into hundreds of personality quirks.

International A ''chemical detonation'' possibly caused by a bomb may have ripped through the front cargo hold of an Air-India jetliner last year, according to a team of five Indian scientists. The Boeing 747, flying from Montreal to London, crashed in the Atlantic off Cork, Ireland, killing all 329 people on board. [ Page A1, Column 1. ] One engine of the jet that crashed in Gander, Newfoundland, on Dec. 12, killing 248 American servicemen, was delivering less power than the three other engines at the moment of impact, according to investigators. They said the slower rotation of the right outboard engine could have contributed to the crash. [ A6:1-2. ]

FAR out in the solar system, eight years and three billion miles after its departure from Earth, the Voyager 2 spacecraft is approaching Uranus with cameras and remote sensors ready for the first close-up examination of the seventh planet. In more than two decades of planetary exploration, a brief time really, spacecraft have surveyed the cratered face of Mercury and flown over and through the hot sulfuric clouds of Venus. They have mapped the volcanic peaks and deep canyons of Mars and landed on its red plains in the vain search for life. They have photographed the surrealistic splendor of Jupiter's Great Red Spot and the pale beauty of Saturn and its majestic rings. Pale Planet, Icy Moons And now the hardy Voyager 2, which passed Jupiter and Saturn long ago and kept going, is to fly within 50,000 miles of the bluish-green clouds of Uranus this Friday. It will make its closest approach at 1 P.M. Eastern standard time.

The Inland Steel Company, the nation's fourth-largest steel producer, today announced the severest quarterly and yearly loss in its history. Inland reported a loss of $90.5 million in the fourth quarter, widened from a loss of $28.3 million a year earlier. Sales shrank to $716.4 million from $723.4 million.

A team of five Indian scientists was reported today to have concluded that a ''chemical detonation,'' possibly caused by a bomb, ripped through the front cargo hold of an Air-India jetliner last year. The Boeing 747, which was flying from Montreal to London, crashed in the Atlantic off Cork, Ireland, killing all 329 people on board. The Indian scientists said they could not identify the chemical nature of the explosive material that might have destroyed the plane. No Part of Device Is Found But the scientists indicated that the evidence pointed to a bomb.