Recall outcry louder

Laurie Arehart shows the non-recalled Firestone tire that shredded on her Ford Explorer

By Bob Golfen

August 25, 2000 Web posted at: 11:22 AM EDT (1522 GMT)

PHOENIX, Arizona (The Arizona Republic Online) -- Laurie Arehart of Phoenix is afraid to drive her newly purchased Ford Explorer after one of its Firestone tires shredded its tread Tuesday on the Squaw Peak Freeway, damaging the vehicle and nearly causing a crash with her 2-year-old daughter on board.

Arehart is also angry. This wasn't supposed to happen.

Less than a week earlier, she had been assured at a Firestone dealership that her Wilderness tires were safe and not part of the recent recall. Although they are the same model and size as some of the 6.5 million tires recalled by Bridgestone/Firestone Inc., her tires were built in Canada, not at the Decatur, Ill., plant blamed for producing defective 15-inch Wilderness tires.

Still, Arehart pointed out, her tire underwent the same kind of catastrophic failure. And the tire that failed on her SUV is the same as those being used around the nation to replace the recalled Firestone tires.

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"I just thought that people should know what happened to me because these are the tires they're using as replacements," she said.

Safety and consumer advocates are calling for an expansion of the Firetone recall, citing crashes, injuries and deaths caused by tread separations in ATX, ATX II and Wilderness tires not included in the current recall. Bridgestone/Firestone has recalled all P235/75R15 ATX and ATX II tires, as well as Wilderness AT tires in the same size made in Decatur.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is investigating 62 deaths and more than 100 injuries that could be linked to tread separation in those tires. But the critics say that the recall doesn't go far enough and that the manufacturers are playing Russian roulette with the lives of their customers.

"The whole strategy of Ford and Firestone is to limit the recall and do as much damage control as they can," said Clarence Ditlow, director of the Center for Auto Safety in Washington, D.C., which has filed suit to force the companies to broaden the recall.

"We seek an order that Ford and Firestone replace all the Wilderness, ATX and ATX II tires regardless of plant and size."

The traffic safety agency said Thursday that it is investigating the safety of Firestone tires beyond the 6.5 million that have been recalled, including all 47 million ATX, ATX II and Wilderness brands.

Safety agency Administrator Sue Bailey, who came on the job Monday, would not discuss specifics of the investigation, but said, "If we feel there is a defect affecting safety, we will issue a recall."

Congress also is getting involved. House Commerce Committee Chairman Tom Bliley, R-Va., said Thursday that he will send four committee staffers to Dearborn, Mich., today to meet with Ford Motor Co. officials and review company documents related to the recall. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., Senate Commerce Committee chairman, has scheduled a Sept. 6 hearing and plans to invite Ford and Bridgestone/Firestone officials to testify.

Tom Dasse, a Scottsdale attorney who specializes in tire litigation cases, says he has several pending lawsuits against Firestone involving non-Decatur 15-inch Wilderness tires and 16-inch versions of all three tire models. One of those cases is a California death related to tread separation on a 16-inch tire.

"I know of several others," he said. "I have several non-Decatur 15-inch tire cases, and I know of more."

Dasse notes that Ford found it necessary to recall all those tires in recent years in four foreign markets - Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Malaysia and Thailand - for tread separation problems.

"These are the same 16-inch Wilderness tires that were recalled in 1999 in the Middle East, of course, which is why I go ballistic," Dasse said. "Why would they recall them there and not here?"

Ditler, Dasse and others calling for an expanded recall say the tire designs or materials are at fault, not the manufacturing process. If the Decatur plant was making bad 15-inch Wilderness tires, Dasse said, why aren't any of the nearly 50 other tire types and sizes affected?

Ford and Firestone say their data prove they have zeroed in on all the problem tires, citing figures that show non-Decatur and 16-inch Wilderness tires "performing at world-class levels" in terms of reliablity. On Thursday, Ford held a press conference to counter demands for expanding the recall, explaining the extensive and complex data they used to figure out which tires were defective and where the data came from.

"The data we have clearly show which Firestone tires are good and which are not," said Helen Petrauskas, Ford vice president of environmental and safety engineering. "A broader recall is wrong."

Petrauskas said that Ford and Firestone would end up replacing good tires with good tires and diverting replacements from those who really need them.

"That kind of approach, which is not based on good information, will cause more harm with no added benefit," she said.

So far, Ford says, it has replaced 861,874 tires, 13.3 percent of the number recalled. Jason Vines, a Ford spokesman, called the expanded-recall campaign "disinformation" from groups "more interested in lawsuits than solutions."

With today's tire improvements, tread separations are unusual, Ford officials said, which is part of what red-flagged the recalled ATX, ATX II and Wilderness tires.

"I think most people understand that tread separation is a very, very rare event," Petrauskas said.

But these arguments are small comfort to Arehart, who just wants her truck fixed after her tread separation incident and replacement tires put on so she can drive it again. She said she's gotten the runaround from Firestone, possibly because her tires are not part of the recall.

"I love my Explorer, but it really scared me," the young mother said. "I have damage to my new vehicle, and all I can think about is what would have happened if it had rolled over."

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