Ford’s New Tires May Be Faulty

Some people taking advantage of Ford Motor Co.’s recall of Firestone tires may be driving away on different brands with higher failure rates, the spokesman for a committee investigating Firestone tires said Monday.

Meanwhile, federal investigators increased the death toll from accidents involving Firestone tires from 174 to 203.

House Commerce Committee spokesman Ken Johnson said congressional investigators have analyzed the failure rates of replacement tires Ford is using--made by Michelin, Continental and Goodyear--and found some fail more often than Firestone’s Wilderness AT tires that have been recalled.

“After carefully analyzing thousands of pages of documents, it’s now clear to us that Ford in some cases is replacing Firestone tires with brands that actually have higher claims rates,” Johnson said. “Why? Frankly, we don’t have a good answer.”

The replacement brands that had the higher failure rate will be revealed during a congressional hearing today, he said.

Ford officials said government regulators hadn’t raised any safety concerns previously about the replacement tires.