Firestone Worried About Tire Recall in ’99
Firestone officials worried in 1999 that foreign recalls of its tires would obligate them to notify U.S. authorities of potential problems with millions of tires in this country, according to a Ford Motor Co. memo released Tuesday by congressional investigators.
The memo may be “the first evidence of an intentional effort” to keep the information from safety agencies here, said Rep. W.J. (Billy) Tauzin (R-La.), chair of one of two congressional hearings scheduled today into the tire safety controversy.
Tauzin said the Ford memo has raised disturbing questions for him. “We’ve got a case where Firestone and Ford dealt with a problem in Saudi Arabia and allowed Americans to keep riding on the same tires in 1999 without taking any action,” Tauzin said. “The obvious question is, ‘Why were lives in Saudi Arabia more valuable than American lives?’ ”
The companies responded that they did not believe it was necessary to notify U.S. regulators because the tire problems in the Middle East did not indicate a safety problem in the U.S.
Tauzin also said the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration was notified not once--as previously reported--but several times by State Farm Insurance of problems with certain Firestone tire models used mainly on Ford Explorer sport-utility vehicles. The information apparently went unheeded until after Firestone voluntarily recalled 6.5 million 15-inch tires last month in the United States. The tires appear to be susceptible to losing their treads in high-speed driving, a failure that can cause disastrous rollover crashes.
Whether Firestone and Ford were legally bound to tell U.S. officials about earlier tire recalls in the Middle East, Southeast Asia and Venezuela is a principal focus of the congressional hearings and of a separate investigation by the NHTSA.
The companies could face fines of up to $925,000 each if they are found to have violated requirements to report product defects.
The March 12, 1999, Ford memo, turned over to the NHTSA in response to a sweeping request for documents relating to tire safety, suggests that the notification issue was the subject of internal discussion among representatives of the companies.
“Firestone legal [department] has some major reservations about the plan to notify customers [in the Middle East],” said the memo from one Ford official to another. “First, they feel that the U.S. [Department of Transportation] will have to be notified of the program, since the same product is sold in the U.S. Second, they are afraid that the Saudi government will . . . react dramatically, including prohibiting the import of the current . . . tire.”
Ford eventually decided to go ahead with the Middle East recall in 1999. But U.S. officials were not told.
Asked to respond to the memo and Tauzin’s statement, Bridgestone/Firestone issued a statement from spokeswoman Christine Karbowiak that said there was “no evidence of a tire design or manufacturing defect” in the tires supplied with Explorers sold in the Middle East.
“Ford agreed with Bridgestone/Firestone’s conclusion that the occurrences were caused by the particular service conditions in Saudi Arabia, not the quality of the tires,” said Karbowiak, adding that if Ford thought there was a defect, it should have notified U.S. authorities.
Ford spokesman Ken Zino said the company had no reason to report the problems in the Middle East--including several fatal accidents--to the NHTSA. Firestone had assured Ford that the tire was performing well in the United States, Zino said.
“Firestone told us there was no problem in the U.S. and at that point we had no reason to doubt Firestone,” Zino said. “We weren’t looking to hide anything. In hindsight, it would have been a good idea [to notify U.S. agencies].”
Ford has asserted that the problems would not have been discovered if it had not been for its efforts to investigate. And Firestone points out that it initiated the U.S. recall voluntarily and there is as yet no official ruling that its tires were defective.
Ford Chief Executive Jac Nasser and Masatoshi Ono, his Bridgestone/Firestone counterpart, are scheduled to testify today before Tauzin’s committee and a separate hearing of the Senate Appropriations Committee, which has jurisdiction over funding for safety agencies. Tauzin lambasted U.S. Transportation Secretary Rodney Slater for declining an invitation to testify. Instead, the department will be represented by Susan Bailey, the new NHTSA head.
The congressman, whose consumer protection subcommittee is part of the powerful House Commerce Committee, also said that:
* Samuel Boyden, an official of State Farm Insurance, had made repeated attempts to alert NHTSA of a problem with Firestone tires. In addition to a 1998 e-mail reported earlier, Tauzin said that Boyden subsequently called the agency twice with updated information. In all, he reported more than 60 incidents of tire failure, including several fatal crashes, to a liaison within the agency.
“NHTSA ignored [Boyden] totally,” Tauzin said. An agency spokesman declined to comment.
* Firestone watched and waited as claims by U.S. consumers involving the recalled tires rose from 35 in 1995, 147 in 1996, 286 in 1997, 372 in 1998 and 749 in 1999. By comparison, the NHTSA had about 130 complaints when it began investigating a potential defect in the tires this May.
Firestone has previously said the numbers of complaints in the United States were small in relation to the total quantity of tires sold, about one-tenth of 1%.
The hearings are viewed by all sides as a potential turning point in the weeks-old controversy. Firestone and Ford could suffer even greater damage to their reputations--or show that they are being responsive to widespread concerns. Likewise, the Transportation Department--which says safety is its top priority--will have to defend its performance as a watchdog.
Ford spokesman Zino said the company is reassessing its relationship of nearly 100 years with Firestone. “Ultimately, we are looking to the actions of Firestone from here on out to determine its future at the Ford Motor Co.,” Zino said. “Firestone continues to be our supplier right now, but if our customers decide at some point in the future that they won’t accept Firestone tires, we always listen to our customers.”
