Firestone Swept Defects Under the Rug
Firestone tire defects have killed at least 88 and injured 250 people, most of them in Ford Explorers.

This design defect is exacerbated by the fact that Ford required a low inflation pressure of 26 psi to mitigate rollover problems with these vehicles. Firestone ATX, ATX II and Wilderness tires on Ford Explorers overheat with highway use, causing the tread to separate and the SUVs to roll over, causing fatal injuries. At least 135 people world-wide have died.

Ford and Firestone covered up safety problems with the tire/SUV combination for a decade.

Ford Explorer was introduced in March 1990. Numerous Ford internal documents show the company engineers recommended changes to the vehicle design after it rolled over in company tests prior to introduction, but other than a few minor changes, the suspension and track width were not changed because this would have delayed the introduction date by as much as ten months. Instead, Ford, which sets the specifications for the manufacture of its tires, decided to remove air from the tires, lowering the recommended psi to 26. It appears Ford never fully tested the tires at this level. The Firestone-recommended psi molded into the tire for maximum load is 35 psi.

Within a year of introduction, lawsuits against Ford and Firestone were filed for tire failures that resulted in crashes and rollovers. At least five cases were filed by 1993, and others followed in the mid-1990s.

In 1996, several state agencies in Arizona began having major problems with tread separations on Firestone tires on Explorers. According to news reports, various agencies demanded new tires, and Firestone sent six engineers to Arizona to conduct an investigation of the complaints, tested the tires and asserted that the tires had been abused or under-inflated.

By the end of 1996, at least 15 lawsuits had been filed.

The Ford Explorer and its sister vehicles with Firestone tires were sold across the globe. In 1998, Ford and Firestone exchanged correspondence and had discussions about tire failures in Middle Eastern, Asian and South American countries. Tires were tested and analyzed. Dealers complained bitterly to Ford and Firestone from 1997 to 2000 about deaths and injuries in Ford Explorers, the adverse effect these were having on sales and delays in getting any relief.

In January 1998, Glenn Drake, Ford's regional marketing manager in the United Arab Emirates e-mails other Ford officials: "If this was a single case, I would accept Firestone's response as they are the experts in the tire business, case closed. However, we now have three cases and it is possible that Firestone is not telling us the whole story to protect them from a recall or a lawsuit."

In 1996, Ford instructed Firestone to upgrade the tires in Venezuela by adding a nylon ply to the tires it manufactured there for additional strength, and Ford made suspension changes to the Explorer, adding a stiffer shock absorber and reinforcement of the suspension. But Ford did not specify adding the nylon ply for U.S.-made Firestone tires nor did it change the U.S. made Explorer suspension at this time.

Ford eventually decided to conduct its own recall without Firestone and replace the tires in the various foreign countries in 1999 and 2000 (called a "customer notification enhancement action"). Ford did this without Firestone because the tire company was fearful a recall would require notification of NHTSA. A March 1999 Ford memo reveals "Firestone legal has some major reservations about the plan to notify customers and offer them an option...They feel that the United States Department of Transportation (US D.O.T.) will have to be notified of the program, since the product is sold in the US"

In May 2000, a top Ford official in Venezuela was quoted in the press as saying the company was replacing the tires there because in Venezuela "the highways allow drivers to travel at high speeds for a sustained period of time, leading to the loosening of the rolling surface of the tire, its consequent blowout and the accident."

On August 30, 2000, the Venezuelan safety regulatory agency, Indecu, concluded after an investigation that Firestone and Ford "met to plan ways out of a situation that was affecting their commercial interests, at the price of causing damage, destruction and death," and announced it is recommending possible criminal enforcement for involuntary manslaughter. Neither Ford nor Firestone informed the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration of this recall, euphemistically labeled a "No Charge Service Program Award Notification."

Numerous Firestone documents recently have become available revealing the company had reason to know since 1997 from property damage and injury claims and tire performance data (such as warranty adjustments and financial analysis of such claims) that its tires were failing. Several documents show a large jump in claims involving tread separations in 1997 and 1998. During all these years the company disclaimed any problem -- to consumers, to state government officials and to Ford. One company chart reveals that tread separations for the Wilderness tire increased 194 percent in 1999 from 1998. Test data on the tires by Ford and Firestone are still not available.

By the end of 1999, four months before NHTSA opened its investigation, at least 59 lawsuits had been filed. A total of at least 35 deaths and 130 injuries were involved in the lawsuits or notice of lawsuits to the companies by May 2000.

Excerpts from a statement by Joan Claybrook, President, Public Citizen; a national public interest organization on Firestone tire defect and Ford Explorer rollovers United States Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation Washington, D.C. September 12, 2000