Venezuela considers probe of Ford, Firestone

CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) -- Venezuela's ruling party will propose Thursday a legislative commission to investigate whether defective products made by Ford Motor Co. and tire maker Bridgestone were responsible for 46 road accident deaths in the South American nation.

Ibrain Velasquez, a legislator for the Fifth Republic Movement party, said he will ask the National Assembly to investigate charges that inadequate suspension on Ford's Explorer sports utility vehicle combined with weak Wilderness AT tires, made by Bridgestone unit Firestone, to cause over 70 high speed accidents in Venezuela.

The public prosecutor's office is already investigating these charges, made in a report by consumer protection agency Indecu, and mulling possible criminal allegations that Ford and Bridgestone officials deliberately concealed manufacturing faults from the public.

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Supporting the findings of the Indecu report, Velasquez told Reuters that "there is shared responsibility, even though Ford has tried to lay all the blame on Firestone."

A legislative investigation in Venezuela would follow an ongoing U.S. Congressional hearing into 88 deaths associated with Ford Explorers and Firestone tires in that country.

Venezuela, where the Ford Explorer is a popular car among the wealthy classes and Bridgestone has long dominated the tire market, has the second highest number of reported deaths after the United States.

"The situation is even worse for Ford than it is for Firestone," Velasquez told Reuters in a brief telephone interview. "I have proof that the Explorer has technical faults, due to which we should remove it from the market or at least halt the sales."

"The Explorer continues killing people in rollovers even when it is fitted with Goodyear or Pirelli tires," he added.

Ford announced in May it would replace free of charge 150,000 Firestone Wilderness AT tires on the roughly 28,000 Explorers in Venezuela.

Firestone announced a U.S. recall of 6.5 million tires in early August, fitted as original equipment on Ford Explorers.

Indecu's initial report had said that an inadequate suspension system had caused Ford to recommend too low a tire pressure for its Explorer vehicles.

Velasquez said the company "had sacrificed safety for comfort."

"I am going to present this as a problem of public health, given the number of deaths and the people who have remained injured, aside from the material losses," he said, adding that the two companies should be made to compensate victims of the crashes.

Relations between Ford and its largest supplier of tires have deteriorated amid complaints that the recall has been mishandled.

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