Firestone and Ford tire controversy
The revelations halved the market value of Firestone parent company Bridgestone, which fired or accepted the resignation of several executives and closed the Decatur, Illinois, factory where the tires were manufactured.
[2] Congressional inquiry into the scandal led to the enactment of the Transportation Recall Enhancement, Accountability and Documentation (TREAD) Act in October 2000.
[5] In July 1998, Samuel Boyden, a researcher for State Farm Insurance, received a call from a claims handler asking for information about tread separation in Firestone tires.
[7] In 1998, Ford began replacing Firestone tires in Venezuela, where 46 deaths had occurred, according to documents uncovered by Sean Kane, a researcher at Strategic Safety Consulting.
[11] On February 7, 2000, KHOU-TV in Houston Texas ran a 9-minute story about high-speed Firestone tire failures on Ford Explorers that led to 30 deaths.
In 2000, Clarence Ditlow, executive director for the Center for Auto Safety, told the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, "Emerging information shows that both Ford and Firestone had early knowledge of tread separation in Firestone Tires fitted to Ford Explorer vehicles but at no point informed NHTSA of their findings".
[5] Firestone also argued that the Explorer was abnormally dangerous and prone to rollovers after a tire failure, leading to more injuries and deaths.
[20] But the extra upper cabin weight on the pickup chassis created a vehicle with a higher center of gravity that was more likely to roll over in an accident.
[18] First offered for sale in March 1990,[23] the first-generation Explorer had one of the lowest fuel-economy ratings of any SUV sold in the United States, due at least in part to Ford's recommended tire pressure.
When the new model went on sale in 1995, it was discovered that this lighter roof was so weak that it would collapse under the weight of an overturned Explorer if the windshield were smashed in, as often happened in rollover accidents.
Firestone argued that the Explorer is poorly designed and exhibits dangerous oversteer in the foreseeable event that a tire fails while driving.
Moreover, the data available to ODI does not indicate that Explorers... are more likely to exhibit linear range oversteer characteristics following a rear tire tread separation than many of their peers.
[15] The Explorer had one of the lowest fuel economy ratings for any SUV under production at that time, due at least in part to Ford's decision to lower the tire pressure to 26 psi.
Ford asked Firestone to reduce the weight of the ATX tires so that it could improve the fuel economy of the Explorer.
This is the area of highest strain in a steel-belted radial tire, primarily due to the structural discontinuity created by the abrupt change in modulus from steel to rubber.
[37] The Explorer weighs more than the Ford Ranger and has a higher Gross Vehicle Weight Rating (GVWR) while also having a lower recommended tire pressure.
In 2000, Firestone added a nylon cap to reduce the problem of tread separation in all of its tire models installed on SUVs.
Critics and workers claim that this led Firestone to cut corners on production and to allow substandard tires to pass inspection that should have been rejected.
This also led Firestone to pressure workers to accept new labor contracts that reduced pay and benefits and increased the hours that its factories were operating.
One worker stated that, despite getting a company discount, he'd stopped purchasing Firestone tires years before the crisis developed because of quality control problems.
These concessions included switching from an 8-hour workday to 12-hour alternating shifts so the factory could remain in operation 24 hours a day, a pay cut by 30 percent for new hires, a seven-day workweek instead of five days, hourly workers would contribute to their healthcare plan, a switch from a piece-rate system to a performance based system, and senior workers were to lose two weeks of vacation time.
[45] By April 1994, the existing labor contract ended and workers continued to work at the factory until the URW called a general strike in July at Decatur and four other Firestone facilities.
At that time the URW voted to unconditionally end the strike to block Firestone[46] from hiring even more replacement workers and then holding a union decertification election.
Labor negotiations between Firestone and the USW continued but many union workers could not return to work because their jobs had been replaced.
[1] Other Firestone factories (Joliette, Quebec and Wilson, North Carolina) also produced the same tire models but had far lower failure rates.
[1] Other studies have found that labor unrest reduces the quality of work by union members, suggesting that there should be additional inspections and heightened scrutiny by regulators during strikes.
On August 21, 2000, Ford halted production at three truck assembly plants so that 70,000 tires could be diverted towards the recall effort.
[2] On October 4, 2001, NHTSA issued a mandatory recall of 3.5 million P235/75R15 and P255/70R16 Wilderness AT tires manufactured prior to May 1998 that were assembled in either the Joliette, Quebec or Wilson, North Carolina factories.
NHTSA concluded that the rubber wedge between the outer edge of the two belts was not thick enough on Wilderness AT tires and not strong enough to resist crack formation and growth.
[66] The letter included accusations that the Ford Explorer was unsafe and called on NHTSA to investigate design flaws in the SUV.
