Firestone Memo Cites Failures in ‘96; Toll Rises

As the number of fatalities in the Firestone tire investigation rose to 103 on Tuesday, a spokesman for congressional investigators said newly received Firestone documents indicate that engineers knew of a problem with the tires as early as 1996.

Firestone officials have previously told Congress that company engineers were unaware until this summer of a potential defect that led to one of the deadliest auto safety recalls in memory.

Bridgestone/Firestone Inc. on Tuesday acknowledged that the tires had failed a test in 1996, but said the flaw in the tire, which the company corrected, was not related to the catastrophic tread separation problem.

Firestone recalled about 6.5 million ATX, ATX II and Wilderness AT 15-inch tires Aug. 9--most of them installed on Ford Explorers--because the tire treads could peel off in highway driving and precipitate a deadly rollover crash.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said Tuesday it has now received more than 2,200 complaints involving the tires under investigation, including nearly 380 crashes and more than 400 injuries.

NHTSA has received more than 800 additional complaints, including 15 new deaths, since its last update three weeks ago.

Of particular concern are more than 230 rollover crashes, which occurred after motorists lost control of their sport-utility vehicles following a tire failure. Seventy-four of the fatal accidents involved rollovers, and tread separation was cited in 68 of the crashes.

An analysis of the new data by The Times found that all but 10 of the 80 fatal accidents reported to NHTSA occurred in Ford Explorers.

The greatest number of complaints--391--came from California, followed by Florida with 345, Texas with 319 and Arizona with 117.

Firestone officials have said evidence of a problem with the tires was in financial reports on lawsuits, property damage and personal injury claims that were not routinely scrutinized by the company’s engineers. Ford’s analysis of those financial reports in July revealed the trend of tire failures that ultimately led to the recall.

However, Ken Johnson, a spokesman for Rep. W.J. “Billy” Tauzin (R-La.), who is leading the House investigation of the tire failures, said the House Commerce Committee has received a Firestone report of quality-control tests in 1996 that “raised a red flag.”

In the tests, Johnson said, 18 new tires taken from Firestone factories were put through a regimen established by the Society of Automotive Engineers for rating the speed capability of tires.

Eight of the 18 tires failed in the tests, Johnson said. Seven of the tires that failed were built at Firestone’s Decatur, Ill., plant, which has been identified by the company and by government investigators as the source of potential quality-control problems.

Johnson said a notation in the report stated that Firestone changed its manufacturing process in 1997, following the tests. The committee has requested more information from Firestone regarding the quality-control tests.

“This information jumped out at us,” said Johnson.

Firestone issued this statement: “With regard to the 1996 test that we believe [Tauzin] is talking about, that was a test that showed a lower-sidewall failure, near the rim. This was not a tread-separation issue. It wasn’t a failure we saw in the real world, but one that we saw in the test, and we corrected it.”

A hearing on the matter is scheduled for Thursday, and Johnson said the committee is trying to obtain more information from Ford on whether it tested the tires on an Explorer under realistic conditions.

According to Firestone, more than 2.5 million tires have been replaced since the recall began. But many of the tires are still on the road, and tread-separation accidents have continued to claim lives.

In one such crash in California, 13 days after the recall was announced, 3-year-old Nicholas Terraszas died after being hurled from his car seat in a Ford Explorer that rolled over three times on Interstate 80 near Davis, police said.

Nicholas’ father, Stephen, was driving as the family headed home from a vacation in Lake Tahoe. Brad Corsiglia, a lawyer for the family, said the father was not aware of the potentially deadly problem.

California Highway Patrol accident investigator Chris Linehan said witnesses reported seeing the tread come off the right rear tire. Stephen Terraszas told police his Explorer began to fishtail and skidded off the pavement before it rolled over. He was traveling at about 70 mph. His wife, Elizabeth, received serious head injuries and is still recovering.

Corsiglia said the Terraszases got a recall notice from Firestone about two weeks after the accident. “The recall is clearly too slow,” said Corsiglia. “It’s like, who’s next?”

Bridgestone/Firestone has said it is doing all it can, including shipping tires from Japan and reimbursing customers for buying competitors’ tires.

Also on Tuesday, Consumers Union officials in San Francisco said Firestone and Ford may have broken a California law by recalling defective tires overseas without informing American safety officials and customers.

Consumers Union, the nonprofit group that publishes Consumer Reports magazine, urged California Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer to investigate the companies for possible violations of the California Corporate Liability Act. That law, the only one of its kind in the country, according to the consumer group, holds companies and their executives criminally liable for failures to notify state regulators of known product defects.

But a spokeswoman for Lockyer said it was too early to say what action the attorney general would take.

“California is working with other states to look into the Firestone matter, and we’ll use all appropriate tools available to us,” said Sandra Michioku, a spokeswoman for Lockyer.

Also on Tuesday, Continental General Tire said it will replace 160,000 tires--mostly mounted on 1998 and 1999 Lincoln Navigators--because they were found to be susceptible to losing their tread.

Continental said warranty and claims data show that 62 of the tires have lost sections of tread when exposed to heat. The tread loss on the tires--the 16-inch ContiTrac AS tires--can cause minor damage to the vehicle, said the Charlotte, N.C.-based company. It said there have been no reports of drivers losing control because of the problem with those tires.

Owners of 1998 and 1999 Navigators should visit their Lincoln dealer for a tire inspection. If the tires are covered by the replacement program, they will be exchanged for free, including mounting and balancing. Continental said it is shipping tires overnight to Lincoln dealers and expects that all replacements will be completed within eight weeks.

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Times staff writer Davan Maharaj in Los Angeles and Times wire services contributed to this report.

* TIRE SAFETY

Knowing a little about how your tires work is a key to proper maintenance. G1

--- UNPUBLISHED NOTE ---

The day after this story published, the NHTSA revised the number of fatalities to 101, not 103. See story: “Tests Show Firestone ‘Had to Know,’” published Sept. 21, 2000.

--- END NOTE ---