Report: Explorers More Prone To Rollover

WASHINGTON--A Washington Post analysis of national and Florida crash statistics shows that the Ford Explorer has a higher rate of tire-related crashes than other sport-utility vehicles--even when the SUV is equipped with Goodyear tires rather than the much-criticized Firestones now under scrutiny. This suggests that “something about the Explorer may be contributing to these accidents,” auto analysts told the paper in today’s edition.

Citing an analysis of national and Florida crash statistics, reporters Dan Keating and Caroline E. Mayer wrote that the findings suggested that “something about the Explorer may be contributing to those accidents,” despite repeated denials by Ford executives who blame Firestone.

Ford has paid $4 million to settle 17 lawsuits triggered by Firestone-equipped Explorer crashes, the company told congressional committees. Firestone has paid $12 million to settle 14 cases.

Government officials in Venezuela, where Ford replaced Firestone tires before the U.S. recall, have said Ford and Firestone share responsibility for the 47 deaths and dozens of accidents that have occurred there.

Samuel Ruh Rios, head of the Venezuelan consumer protection agency, said the accidents resulted from “a lethal combination” of the Explorer’s design and certain Firestone tires. He said the wrecks “have been caused by a macabre combination between a suspension that is set too soft and tires that are not appropriate for the Explorer.”

The Post said that according to a Ford document obtained by congressional investigators, the company’s own analysis of rollovers after tire explosions in Venezuela found the problem unique to the Explorer. “High incidence of vehicle roll-over after a tire blow out or tread loss has not been detected for other vehicle brands,” such as Toyota Motor Corp., General Motors Corp. and Chrysler Corp., the document said as reported by the Post.

The Venezuelan consumer agency also noted that when Ford began replacing Firestone tires in May, it offered to install stiffer shock absorbers. Ford said the offer was related to rough roads, not tire problems.

While not commenting directly on the Post’s findings, Mehdi Ahmadian, director of Virginia Tech University’s Advanced Vehicle Dynamics Laboratory, said that tires, axles and suspension are related. “The recent trend in the tire and automotive industry is to study the tire and the suspension as a combined module,” he said. “The dynamics of one affects the other,” he told the Post.

Explorers were no more likely than other SUVs to have brake problems, worn tires or most other equipment failures that contributed to a wreck in Florida, the paper said.

However, Keating and Mayer wrote that no other make or model of SUV had a pattern of equipment failure related as strongly to accidents as the Explorer’s tire blowouts. Using two different ways of measuring accident rates, the Explorer was either three or four times as likely as other SUVs to have a tire blowout contribute to an accident, the Post said.

Explorer’s higher fatality rate in blowout accidents may be related to rollovers. In 5,870 single-vehicle accidents in Florida, the Explorer was 13 percent more likely to roll than other compact SUVs, against which Ford likes to compare the Explorer’s rollover record, the Post said.

The Explorer was 53 percent more likely than other compact SUVs to roll over when an equipment failure such as faulty brakes, bald tires or blowouts caused an accident, Keating and Mayer added.

James Fell, who retired last year as chief of research at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, told the Post the findings were a “first indicator that (Ford Explorers) may have a stability problem.”

The Post quoted John Lampe, Firestone’s executive vice president, as saying that “tires will fail, and do so for a number or reasons. In most cases, a vehicle that experiences a tire failure can be brought safely under control. However, we have seen an alarming number of serious accidents from rollovers of the Explorer after a tire failure.”

One reason, Lampe suggested to the paper, was Ford’s advice to inflate Explorer tires to 26 pounds per square inch--to reportedly make the Explorer less prone to roll-over--which is lower than Firestone’s recommendation of 30 psi and lower than the pressure recommended for other SUVs. The 26-psi level left “little safety margin,” Lampe said. “Heat that can cause a failure builds up faster in a flatter tire carrying a heavy load in hot weather,” according to the Post’s analysis.

Safety advocates and plaintiff lawyers have maintained that Ford shares blame for the tire problem because it recommended the lower 26 psi inflation rate. In September Ford upped its inflation recommendation to 30 psi to match that of Firestone.

The Post analysis of fatal crashes nationally from 1997 to 1999, and a much larger Florida database of fatal and nonfatal crashes for the same period, indicated:

• Explorers equipped with Goodyears had a higher rate of tire-related accidents than other SUVs in the national fatal accident records, though the 2,000 accidents involved are so few that the difference could be a statistical fluke. But an analysis of 25,000 fatal and nonfatal SUV accidents with 83 blown tires in Florida shows that tire blowouts in Goodyear-equipped Explorers contributed to crashes at rates more than double those of other SUVs. (Explorers with Firestone tires crashed four times as often as other SUVs after tire failures.)

• Explorers were no more likely than other SUVs to have brake problems, worn tires or most other equipment failures that contributed to an accident in Florida. However, no other make or model of SUV has a pattern of equipment failure related as strongly to accidents as the Explorer's tire blowouts. Using two different ways of measuring accident rates, the Explorer was either three or four times as likely as other SUVs to have a tire blowout contribute to an accident.

• Explorer’s higher fatality rate in blowout accidents may be related to rollovers. In 5,870 single-vehicle accidents, where rollovers are most clearly recorded in the Florida statistics, the Explorer was 13 percent more likely to roll than other compact SUVs, against which Ford likes to compare the Explorer’s rollover record. The Explorer was 53 percent more likely than other compact SUVs to roll over when an equipment failure such as faulty brakes, bald tires or blowouts caused an accident. The national data showed that in the 187 blown-tire accidents that killed someone in the SUV, the Explorer rolled over 95 percent of the time, compared with 83 percent for other SUVs.

The analysis also found the vast majority of the tire problems contributing to accidents happened after the vehicle had been on the road for three or four years.

Though tire blowouts are rarely the cause of accidents--and Florida’s climate is warmer, so its blowout rate may be higher than other states--the differences The Post found in Florida between Explorers with Firestones or Goodyears and other SUVs is statistically “very, very significant,” said Hans Joksch, a research scientist from the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute.

“These are very simple, straightforward analyses that don’t look at the fine points, but the results are so strong that it should lead to detailed study to what extent it's the tires, to what extent it’s the Explorer, to the extent that it’s Firestone and Goodyear,” Joksch told the paper. “The whole issue should be examined much more closely.”

Meanwhile, Ford CEO Jacques Nasser conceded Sunday in an interview on CBS’ “60 Minutes” that SUVs--which have higher centers of gravity than cars--are more susceptible to rollover accidents when tires fail.

“If you do have a bad tire, then a sports utility vehicle is more prone to an accident, then, say, a low-slung sedan,” he told CBS.

To read the Washington Post piece in its entirety, contact: www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A25660-2000Oct6.html