Tire-Failure Study Suggests Wider Firestone Recall Needed
Seeking to ratchet up pressure for a wider recall of Firestone tires, a safety group said Friday that its analysis of tire failure reports to federal regulators suggests that tires not included in the recall have suffered more failures than the recalled tires.
Arlington, Va.-based Safetyforum.com analyzed updated Firestone recall data released by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration this week and found that, among the incidents where the make and origin of the tires were traceable, tires covered by the recall represented less than half of the incidents reported to NHTSA.
Bridgestone/Firestone Inc. recalled about 6.5 million 15-inch ATX, ATX II and Wilderness AT tires last month because of mounting evidence that they lose their treads at high speed causing collisions and rollover accidents. NHTSA says its investigation so far has uncovered 101 deaths involving the tires.
The recalled ATX and ATX II tires were made at several Firestone plants. The company recalled only the Wilderness tires produced at its plant in Decatur, Ill.
Ralph Hoar, a consultant who runs Safetyforum.com, analyzed the 2,226 complaints filed with NHTSA and found that 267 could be positively identified as to the tire models and factories where they were made. Of them, only 111, or 42%, involved tires that were recalled.
The remaining 156 incidents, or 58%, involved 14-, 15- and 16-inch Wilderness tires made in Wilson, N.C.; Aiken, S.C.; and Joliette, Canada. Most of those were made at the Wilson plant.
The 156 reports involving non-recalled tires cited 32 blowouts and 99 cases of treads peeling from tires, Hoar said. They led to 11 crashes, including nine rollovers, resulting in 23 injuries and two deaths.
By contrast, the 111 reports involving recalled tires indicated that failures of these tires were considerably more deadly, involving 47 rollovers out of 52 total crashes, causing 34 deaths and 100 injuries. Hoar said he could not explain the difference in numbers of deaths and injuries.
Ford officials did not return telephone calls and a representative of Bridgestone/Firestone said no officials were available to comment.
Both companies have said that although ATX and ATX II tires made in six factories were recalled, their analysis of internal company data shows that the problems with Wilderness AT tires was overwhelmingly traced to tires made at the Decatur plant.
Hoar said he believes both Ford and Firestone have attempted to focus the problem on the Decatur plant so the tire maker won’t have to recall more tires. That would be a huge blow to Bridgestone/Firestone, which is being pummeled by the recall, but also a further black eye to Ford’s reputation if it had to replace even more Firestones on its sport-utility vehicles and pickup trucks.
A widened recall would also slow down Ford’s replacement of recalled tires on Explorer SUVs, which were outfitted with most of the recalled tires, because it is depending partly on non-recalled Firestones as replacements.
“The Ford analysis of the data allows them to maintain the fiction that the problem is in Decatur and by maintaining that fiction they avoid recalling all Wilderness tires, and get to use Wilderness tires made elsewhere as replacement tires,” Hoar said. “I hope this [analysis] shows that that king has no clothes.”
He said the number of failures of tires produced at plants other than Decatur was high enough to warrant wider action. “This further supports what we have been saying all along: All of these tires are defective and should be recalled.”
But he added: “The biggest part of the puzzle is that Ford and Firestone steadfastly refused to say how many tires were produced in each facility, so a production-adjusted analysis is not possible,” Hoar said.
Joan Claybrook, president of Public Citizen, a consumer advocate group, agreed that the lack of data on Wilderness tire production makes it impossible to compare failure rates for Decatur and the other plants.
“There’s no proportionality here . . . so we don’t really have enough information to make an independent evaluation, but it suggests to me, as we’ve been saying for some time, that all the [Wilderness] tires should be recalled,” said Claybrook, who headed NHTSA under President Carter in the 1970s.
“My view is that this is a design defect, just as it was with the Firestone 500,” she said, referring to the nation’s other major tire recall for tread separation, which happened while she was NHTSA chief.
Tab Turner, a Little Rock, Ark., plaintiff attorney who works closely with Hoar and Safetyforum.com, said the analysis shows that a recall focused on Decatur tires “allows Ford and Firestone to play a shell game that replaces defective tires from Decatur with more defective tires from other Firestone facilities.”
“These so-called safe replacement tires are every bit as bad--and in fact worse--than the recalled tires and these companies know it,” Turner said.
NHTSA did not return a telephone call seeking comment.
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Jones reported from Detroit and Levin from Los Angeles.
