General Tire Accused of Deceiving U.S. in Probe
Amid growing concern that auto and tire companies have failed to disclose critical safety hazards, lawyers for accident victims are accusing Continental General Tire Inc. of deceiving government investigators about possible defects in tires linked to a series of deadly rollover crashes.
Several reports of crashes caused by treads peeling off 15-inch General tires led to a 1993 investigation by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which asked the company for documents relating to possible defects in the tires.
After reviewing data supplied by General--which excluded what now appears to be important evidence of problems--NHTSA closed the probe in July 1993, concluding there was no basis to suspect a defect.
At least 18 deaths and 58 injuries allegedly have been linked to just one of the several tire models included in the NHTSA probe, according to court documents. Most of the casualties occurred after the investigation was closed.
General’s responses to the NHTSA investigation have become a major focus of lawsuits over failures of the tires. Lawyers for crash victims contend that had General come clean with NHTSA, the probe would have continued and there would have been a recall, avoiding tragic injuries and deaths.
Continental General says that it cooperated fully with NHTSA and that its tires are safe.
It is uncertain how many of the tires involved in the investigation, which were produced from 1987 until 1993, are still on the road. But seven of the deaths linked to the tires have been reported in the last 2 1/2 years.
The lawsuits stemming from the crashes have turned up revealing documents that NHTSA appeared to ask for in 1993 but never got to see. Among them:
* Reports and memos on design changes needed to reduce tread and belt separations. Although NHTSA had sought “copies of all . . . studies, surveys and investigations” pertaining to the separation problem, the documents were not turned over.
* Records and correspondence from an undisclosed recall of thousands of tires from Big O Tires Inc., a major distributor that had bitterly complained about belts and treads separating from the General tires. NHTSA had sought copies of all “bulletins, advisories or other communications” to distributors pertaining to tread separation. Despite its extensive correspondence with Big O, General told NHTSA it had provided no such communications to distributors.
In a statement to The Times, Continental General said it was not required to inform NHTSA of the Big O recall, because it involved “ride quality” issues and not the safety of the tires.
General “lied to the government,” said Brian Panish, a lawyer in a Los Angeles case involving a crash victim who was left a quadriplegic. “They withheld documents that they should have provided.”
Michael B. Brownlee, a former NHTSA associate administrator retained as an expert witness for plaintiffs in some of the General Tire cases, said dozens of internal reports, studies and memos the agency had sought were not turned over by the tire maker.
“The documents present strong evidence of a safety-related defect,” Brownlee said in a report filed in court. “It is likely a safety-related defect would have been found by NHTSA had the investigation continued,” he said. A recall “by General Tire would have resulted.”
NHTSA officials say they do not intend to reopen the case, citing a statutory limit of five years to penalize companies that withhold information.
“NHTSA expects all manufacturers to provide truthful and complete responses . . . and we are concerned whenever there are allegations that a manufacturer has not done so,” the agency said in response to questions from The Times.
But “considering . . . the amount of time that has elapsed since the responses were submitted by General Tire, the agency does not plan to take any further action.”
Years before the Firestone recall of 6.5 million tires, most of them installed on Ford Explorers, the General Tire episode might have been an early warning of the dangers of tread separation failures occurring on rollover-prone SUVs.
In a parallel with the Firestone case, the General tires involved in many tread-separation accidents--GT52S models--were made for the Bronco II, the compact SUV that Ford Motor Co. replaced with the Explorer. There have been at least 34 reports of Bronco IIs flipping over after their GT52S tires failed. And as with Firestone, reports of treads peeling from General tires have been concentrated in states in the Southwest and the Sun Belt, where hot weather increases the stress on tires.
The Continental General episode also reflects NHTSA’s heavy dependence on those it regulates to respond completely and accurately to its investigative queries--and its limited recourse when they do not.
The Times reported last December on several cases of companies in NHTSA defect investigations allegedly withholding information, only to have the incriminating documents surface years later in product liability lawsuits. A recent example involved stalling problems linked to an ignition component in some Ford vehicles. Last month, a judge in Oakland ordered an unprecedented recall of vehicles, ruling that Ford had improperly withheld documents from investigators a decade earlier.
Responding to complaints that Firestone and Ford had maintained a long silence about tread-separation failures, Congress last month passed legislation to toughen reporting requirements and penalties for noncompliance. But with the five-year statute of limitations, NHTSA may learn too late--or never--when information is held back.
“It’s becoming more and more evident that it’s . . . common” for companies to “bob and weave and evade,” said Joan Claybrook, who ran NHTSA during the Jimmy Carter administration and is president of the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen.
“The companies almost view it as a cat-and-mouse game, to see what they can get away with,” Claybrook said. “And as long as the agency doesn’t punish them, they have every incentive to behave that way.”
Continental General, based in Charlotte, N.C., is the American unit of German giant Continental AG, the world’s fourth-biggest tire maker. With 1999 sales of about $1.6 billion, General also is the fourth-leading producer in North America--behind Goodyear, Michelin and Bridgestone/Firestone, according to the industry publication Tire Business.
In September, in the wake of the Firestone recall, Continental General announced the recall of about 160,000 16-inch ContriTrac tires mounted on 1998 and ’99 Lincoln Navigators. The company said it was unaware of any injuries or deaths linked to failures of the tires.
The investigation launched in March 1993 was a “preliminary evaluation,” NHTSA argot for the first stage of a defect probe. In such an evaluation, the short-staffed agency relies almost entirely on data from the company under investigation in deciding whether to fold or widen the probe. An expanded investigation, known as an “engineering evaluation,” typically draws on more sources of information and can result in pressure for a recall.
Days after the ’93 probe began, James Dolwick, operations manager at General’s big tire factory in Mt. Vernon, Ill., sent an anguished memo that cited high rates of scrapped tires to plant department heads. “WE ARE OUT OF CONTROL, and, as you can see, it is not one particular defect, but a conglomeration from every department,” Dolwick said in the memo, which has been filed as an exhibit in a court case.
But NHTSA got a rosier picture from General. And the agency closed the investigation in July 1993, saying “there does not appear to be an indication of a safety defect trend.”
The inquiry had focused on the GT52S and other 15-inch tires, including private brands in General’s Ameri-series line. The Ameri-series tires were produced for big distributors and department stores. One of them, the Legacy II, was made for Big O and its hundreds of franchise shops in the United States and Canada.
According to records not supplied to NHTSA, Big O had bombarded General with complaints about tread separation and other problems with the tires. Big O said it had been forced to grant an extraordinarily high number of tire “adjustments”--prorated credits given to customers for tires replaced before their treads wear out.
Under pressure from Big O, General agreed in September 1990 to replace, free of charge, thousands of Legacy IIs and other tires in Big O’s southwestern region, where separation complaints were highest. The agreement included replacing unsold tires in Big O’s inventory as well as those brought in by dissatisfied customers.
Complaints persisted and, in September 1991, General extended its so-called “Big O Confidence Campaign” to the rest of the country.
Kenneth L. Wittenauer, a senior attorney for Continental General who helped prepare its responses to NHTSA, was questioned about the Big O documents during a deposition last year in a Georgia lawsuit.
Among the documents was a Sept. 13, 1991, memo from a General senior vice president to company President Alan L. Ockene.
“We just completed our quarterly meeting with Big O senior management,” the memo said. “Quality issues . . . raised by Big O” included the problem of the tires continuing “to separate at higher than desired levels.”
Asked by plaintiff lawyer Lance B. Cooper why the memo had not been turned over to NHTSA, Wittenauer said it was “not relevant to what they were asking.”
Wittenauer was also shown a blistering letter to Ockene from Big O President Steven P. Cloward.
“I recently attended a dealer retreat . . . in the Northwest Region, and the No. 1 concern was General’s quality or lack thereof,” said the letter, dated Oct. 1, 1991. “Many dealers are refusing to even stock the Legacy II product.”
The “quality problems have had and are continuing to have a devastating effect on our dealers and on Big O Tires Inc., both financially and mentally,” Cloward wrote.
Shown another letter from General to Cloward on the subject of tires returned because of tread separation, Wittenauer said that letter too was not pertinent to the NHTSA investigation.
“Mr. Wittenauer, are you [saying] . . . that this letter . . . to Mr. Cloward . . . at Big O Tires Inc., which is a distributor, is not a communication to a distributor?” Cooper asked.
“Not in the definition of those terms,” Wittenauer replied.
“Well, in layman’s terms, this is a communication, isn’t it?” Cooper asked.
Replied Wittenauer: “I don’t agree that it is a communication in the context of technical bulletins or advisories, as defined in the request by NHTSA.”
He was also shown documents on design changes aimed at fixing the problem of tread and belt separations.
“Those documents were not produced,” Wittenauer acknowledged. “But I certainly would disagree that they, in hindsight, should have been produced,” he said.
Allan J. Kam, a former NHTSA senior enforcement attorney who has been retained as a plaintiffs’ expert in some of the General tire cases, described Wittenauer’s position as “so farfetched . . . as not to pass the laugh test.”
Wittenauer did not return calls seeking comment.
