Goodyear Replaced Tires in ‘Silent Recall,’ Critics Allege
Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. for more than four years has been quietly replacing thousands of failed tires fitted on vans, light trucks and sport-utility vehicles and writing checks to customers, but only for those who complain, according to tire dealers and consumers.
Safety advocates and plaintiff attorneys say the Akron, Ohio, tire maker is engaged in a controversial practice known as a “silent recall” and placing thousands of drivers and passengers at risk by not declaring a full public recall.
Goodyear denies that it is conducting a silent recall. It says it is providing “customer satisfaction” replacements on a case-by-case basis.
Goodyear acknowledged last month that tread separation involving its 16-inch Load Range E light-truck tires has been linked to at least 15 deaths and 120 injuries, but said it didn’t believe a recall was necessary because it found no defects in the tires. The company did not disclose that it had been offering free replacements of the tires for years.
On Monday, the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration said it was stepping up its inquiry into the deaths involving Goodyear’s light-truck tires. Investigators have asked the company to produce information about the 15 deaths and to disclose how many light-truck tires were made by the company, said NHTSA spokesman Rae Tyson.
Company executives won’t say how many claims they’ve paid or how much has been spent compensating people whose vehicles were damaged because of tread separation.
Sources familiar with the matter said Goodyear has received more than 3,000 claims about its light-truck tires since 1995. A majority of those claims have been settled, said sources, with consumers receiving replacement tires and reimbursements if their vehicles were damaged.
The number of complaints received by Goodyear is nearly as high as the 3,700 complaints NHTSA has received about tires made by Bridgestone/Firestone, which in August recalled 6.5 million tires. NHTSA received most of the Firestone complaints after a flood of publicity following the Aug. 11 recall. Firestone’s tires--fitted mainly on Ford Explorers--have been linked to more than 150 deaths and 500 injuries worldwide.
Separately, The Times has learned that Goodyear also has been replacing its Load Range D 15-inch tires, fitted mainly on recreational vehicles, after RV owners and manufacturers across the nation reported widespread tire failures. Some RV owners said it was only after they had experienced tread separation on their Marathon tires several times that they learned Goodyear would replace them for free.
“The big questions here are: Why hasn’t Goodyear notified NHTSA about these bad tires, and why is Goodyear still leaving the remaining tires on the road?” said Sean Kane, president of Strategic Safety, a Virginia organization that was one of the first to call upon Firestone to launch its recent recall. “I got to believe it’s a cost-benefit analysis. There are some financial incentives for them not to go forward.”
Goodyear officials declined to comment beyond stating that they are not conducting a silent recall. “You are asking Goodyear to supplement the efforts of plaintiffs’ attorneys to try lawsuits in the media rather than in the courts where a fair and impartial presentation of the facts can be made by both parties,” Senior Vice President John Perduyn said.
The company has acknowledged strengthening its Load Range E tires as early as 1996 after its own data showed what one company official described in court testimony as an “alarming” rate of tread separation.
But Goodyear said extensive tests showed there were no defects in its light-truck tires. Instead, the company blamed punctures, impact damage, overloading and underinflating for the accidents that caused the deaths, injuries and vehicle damage.
Safety advocates say Goodyear’s stealthy handling of consumer complaints echoes efforts by Bridgestone/Firestone to hide overseas tire failure reports from U.S. regulators, which led to congressional hearings and a tough new auto safety law.
The Times reported last month that deaths and injuries involving Load Range E tires have been piling up since 1995 and that Goodyear had launched a series of internal investigations into its manufacturing and design processes. During these probes, Goodyear said it noticed that motorists were overloading, an observation that led the tire maker to start putting an extra layer, or so-called nylon cap, on Load Range E tires to strengthen them. But it left millions of the unreinforced tires on the road, including the Goodyear Wrangler AT, Goodyear Wrangler HT, Kelly-Springfield Power King and Kelly-Springfield Trailbuster.
As claims involving these tires mounted, Goodyear began instructing dealers about how to handle customer complaints about its light-truck tires. An independent Iowa tire dealer, who asked that his name not be used, said he was told to simply replace the tires if customers reportedtheir tire tread separated or complained about other problems, such as bulges in the tires.
The owner of a Big O Tire store in Irvine, which sells Goodyear tires, said he replaced Load Range E tires on a few customers’ vehicles after receiving the same instructions from Goodyear.
Several motorists said they were told about a “recall” after complaining to Goodyear that the tread on their tires had come apart--for no apparent reason.
David F. Matuszak, a Redlands teacher, said his Load Range E tires on his 1995 Dodge Ram pickup separated on three different occasions.
Matuszak said the tread on four 16-inch Wrangler tires began peeling off after only 12,000 miles. Goodyear replaced them on a prorated basis, and a company representative told him that his tires were among a “bad batch,” Matuszak said.
In July 1998, one of the replacement tires separated as he was driving on Interstate 5 in Irvine. The tire’s steel belts ripped into the truck’s body, causing $900 damage.
Goodyear paid for the damage, and Matuszak paid a small sum to upgrade his tires to the Goodyear Workhorse model, which separated last April as he drove on Interstate 10 in Pomona. Again, Goodyear paid for $800 body damage and replaced his tires for the third time.
“I am convinced that Goodyear is knowingly selling tires with defective designs,” said Matuszak, who produced receipts and other insurance documents to corroborate his story. “These tires are time bombs waiting to explode on new victims.”
Kane of Strategic Safety, the Virginia auto defects investigation firm, said he believes Goodyear has not initiated a recall because it would cost the company tens of millions of dollars to recall millions of tires.
A check of NHTSA records revealed that Goodyear has recalled tires at least four times in the last decade. Those recalls involved relatively small populations of tires--from 91 to about 500,000. In some cases, Goodyear conducted the recall even though no deaths or injuries were linked to the defective tires.
Goodyear’s Perduyn said the company recalled some of its tires “because we found them to be defective. Since our Load Range E and D tires are quality, non-defective products, there is no reason for a recall.”
Goodyear is fighting allegations that it has ordered a silent recall of its Load Range D tires, used mainly on recreational vehicles. A class-action suit filed in Massachusetts accuses Goodyear of failing to warn consumers that its 15-inch Marathon tires are unsafe and unsuitable for campers.
Robert Jenkins, a retired Bedford, Mass., businessman, said a Goodyear tire dealer in Florida told him that there was a “silent recall” involving the Marathon tires on his Adventure World RV and that he could replace them at a discounted price of $16.50 each.
When representatives of his trailer company told him that Goodyear was “exchanging” his tires, Jenkins contacted his attorney, who filed suit in June.
After reading a newspaper story about Jenkins’ suit, other RV owners reported that they called Goodyear’s customer service number and got their tires exchanged.
Even before Jenkins’ suit, publications catering to owners of recreational vehicles published reports tipping off subscribers to Goodyear’s exchange program.
“To say that it’s not a silent recall is just not credible,” said John Pentz, Jenkins’ attorney. “This exchange program allows them to preempt potential lawsuits and to argue that they’re not replacing these tires.”
Chuck Sinclair, a Goodyear spokesman, insisted that Goodyear is not conducting a silent recall. Sinclair said the company strengthened its Marathon tires a few years ago after noticing that consumers were overloading their trailers “with customized modifications like dishwashers, air conditioners and large televisions.”
“If we believe the customer is exceeding load limits, we are assisting them in putting on the more robust tire,” he said. “We do not have a free replacement program in place. We handle each situation on an individual basis.”
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Times staff writer John O’Dell contributed to this report.
