Report: Tire Design Flaw Still In Play

WASHINGTON--The Washington Post has reported that a former Bridgestone/Firestone Inc. official has testified in a wrongful death trial that he suspects ATX and Wilderness tires made in Decatur, Ill., were over-represented in fatal crashes of Ford Explorers because they were installed on Explorers sold primarily in warm-weather states.

Post Reporter James V. Grimaldi wrote that “the new explanation from Robert O. Martin, who was the firm’s vice president for quality assurance until he retired in April, could exonerate workers at the Decatur plant who have been accused of shoddy workmanship.

“But it raises fresh questions about whether there is a design flaw that could have produced faulty Wilderness tires at any of the three plants that make them, especially since Firestone has insisted there were no manufacturing-process problems in Decatur. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is still investigating whether a larger batch of tires should be recalled. Wilderness tires are produced at plants in Wilson, N.C., and Joliette, Quebec, as well as in Decatur. About 6.5 million of the all-terrain tires were recalled after tread separations caused accidents that killed about 100 people in the United States, many of them driving Explorers. Warm weather is a common factor in those accidents.”

Tab Turner, a lawyer representing plaintiffs in lawsuits against Ford and Firestone, was quoted as saying “this is the first time that either Ford or Firestone has publicly admitted that blaming all of the bad tires on Decatur is simply not right. What this shows is if you expose the tires from Wilson and Joliette to the same conditions the Decatur tires are seeing in the South, then they are going to fail just like the Decatur tires.”

Martin offered no explanation about possible design issues, according to Grimaldi. Martin said repeatedly throughout the deposition that Ford’s decision to recommend a lower pressure for the tires might have contributed to the high number of failures. Ford has denied that at Congressional hearings and in public statements.

Firestone officials have said that heat tends to exacerbate problems in tires, particularly when they are underinflated.

Most of the all-terrain tires made in Decatur went to Ford’s Explorer plant in suburban St. Louis and those Explorers then went to southern and western states, said Martin, an expert witness testifying for Firestone.

Grimaldi wrote that a Ford spokesman confirmed that officials in the truck division thought that generally most of the Explorers built in a St. Louis suburb went to the West, while Louisville, Ky.,-built Explorers went to the East. He did not have details.

“Martin’s testimony, given in preparation for a wrongful death lawsuit against Ford and Firestone filed in Texas, marks the first time a Firestone official has offered a specific explanation for why Decatur-built tires experienced tread separations at a higher rate than those made at other plants,” Grimaldi wrote.

Firestone has recalled all ATX and ATX II tires, but only those Wilderness tires made in Decatur. Plaintiffs’ lawyers and consumer advocates have called on NHTSA to require Bridgestone/Firestone to recall Wilderness tires made in Wilson and Joliette, but the company has resisted. NHTSA has not decided whether to expand the recall and its investigation is continuing.

Ford initially pointed out the overrepresentation of claims filed on tires made at the Decatur plant.

“Asked by three different lawyers why Decatur tires had more claims, Martin told them he suspected the answer was in the distribution of the vehicles that got the Decatur tires,” according to Grimaldi’s account.

“The last time he was asked about Decatur, it was by Ford attorney Warren Platt. ‘Is it your belief at this time that the overinvolvement of Decatur tires in tread separations is driven by the fact that more Decatur tires went to St. Louis than to Louisville?’ Platt asked Martin.

“‘Decatur would have provided more tires to St. Louis than Louisville,’ Martin said. ‘Wilson was the primary source to Louisville. It supplied a huge number of tires, as did Joliette. Decatur, on the other hand, was the primary supplier to St. Louis,’” said the Post.

Grimaldi noted that Martin also explained the distribution: “From a sheer logistics point of view, the Decatur tires would go to the St. Louis-built vehicles more so than Louisville, and those vehicles more so would go west and south.”

To read the piece in its entirety, contact www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A8130-2000Nov30.html.