P.C. Calls For Wider Firestone Recall

WASHINGTON--Reuters has moved a dispatch saying that Public Citizen is stepping up its campaign for a wider recall of Bridgestone/Firestone tires with a report, due out this week, that says millions of other tires have the same problems that prompted Firestone’s recall of 6.5 million tires.

“The report lays most of the blame on a weak ‘wedge area’ near the edge of the steel belts for the tread separation failures linked to 148 deaths in complaints to U.S. auto regulators, a person familiar with the report said Tuesday,” the news service said.

Last August Firestone announced the recall of certain 15-inch ATX tires and those same-sized Wilderness AT tires made at its Decatur, Ill. plant. The majority of the recalled tires were fitted as standard equipment on Ford Explorer sport utility vehicles.

(Separately, Firestone is now recalling 8,000 Mexican-made Wilderness LE tires for a steelbelt-adhesion problem similar to that cited by the company as a factor in the ATX and Wilderness AT failures. These tires had been fitted to General Motors Corp. Chevrolet Surburban and GMC Yukon XL SUVs made in Mexico.

Reuters noted that for months Public Citizen and safety researchers advising lawyers suing Firestone and Ford have been pressing for a wider recall, saying the complaint data includes Wilderness tires made at other plants and in other sizes.

Ford and Firestone have said their analysis of the data confirms the scope of the almost-completed recall was correct, according to the news service.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is continuing to examine whether the recall is adequate.

“My hope is that the federal government will take an analytical look (at) the materials that we’re presenting and understand that this counters the position taken by Ford and Firestone--that everything is fine, that all the bad tires have been recalled,'' Public Citizen President Joan Claybrook was quoted as saying by CBS news.

A spokeswoman for Public Citizen said the report, done in collaboration with Safetyforum.com which assists plaintiffs lawyers, would be released sometime this week.

Last month, Firestone said that at Decatur, it had found some manufacturing problems in a rubber skim coat resulting in less adhesion of the steel belts inside the recalled tires.

The company also introduced a thicker wedge area in Wilderness tires beginning in April 1998, a change designed to ease internal strain and reduce separation.

A Reuters analysis of the more than 4,300 complaints collected by NHTSA showed that Wilderness tires made at two other Firestone plants were the subject of more complaints than Decatur-made Wilderness tires.

Decatur, with 129 complaints, was still linked to the highest number of deaths, with 12 fatalities.

“But Wilderness tires made in Wilson, N.C., were the subject of 504 complaints linked to six deaths while the Joliete plant, in Quebec, Canada, had 206 complaints and one fatality,” said Reuters.

Ford now says it is adding tires to its bumper-to-bumper warranty coverage, an item previously covered by tire manufacturers, saying it would give the automaker earlier access to tire performance data.