Recall of Firestone Tires Is Viewed as a First Step Toward Damage Control
By CLAUDIA H. DEUTSCH
hen Bridgestone/Firestone announced a recall yesterday of some 6.5
million Firestone tires, it was the company's first admission that the tires
could pose a serious danger. But it was
also a first step toward damage control.
Twenty years is a long time, but
memories of how a huge government-mandated recall in the late 1970's nearly bankrupted Firestone Tire and Rubber -- the company's name before the
Bridgestone Corporation of Japan
bought it in 1988 -- clearly resonate.
"The oral history around here is that
we were a lot too slow to cooperate back
then," said Christine Karbowiak, a
Firestone spokeswoman.
This time, the company is recalling
the tires without being forced -- though
it withstood a week of withering news
stories before acting. It has established
a hot line for worried drivers to call,
and it is offering to replace -- with
virtually no questions asked -- the affected tires, regardless of how long they
have been on the road.
Perhaps most important, Firestone
is trying to define the problem as narrowly as possible, so that its brand is
not tarnished as a whole. Though the
recall includes all 15-inch Radial ATX
and Radial ATX II tires, the focus is on
Wilderness AT tires made at one Illinois plant.
"They are isolating this so that, in the
consumer's mind, this isn't a problem
with Firestone tires, but a problem with
15-inch Wilderness tires made in a particular plant in Decatur," said Stephen
Girsky, a tire industry analyst with
Morgan Stanley Dean Witter. "If they
can keep this controlled and isolated, it
won't have a significant long-term impact on their sales."
Still, plaintiffs' lawyers who have
filed lawsuits -- more than 100, so far --
blaming the tires for serious injuries
say Firestone in fact is stonewalling.
In settling a number of suits over the
last year, the company has insisted
that the lawyers and their clients not
talk about the cases.
"I ask them for documents, they
say, 'Sure, as long as you sign the
usual protective order,' " said Henry
Wallace, a lawyer representing an
injured client in Florida. "Well, I
won't sign, and other lawyers shouldn't either. My research shows there
are at least 31 cases that are astoundingly similar to mine, and I
should have access to their information."
Ms. Karbowiak, the Firestone
spokeswoman, said it was common
in business litigation to keep settlement agreements private.
"I am
really resentful of the implication
that there is anything untoward,"
she said. "It is inflammatory."
The company also finds itself in
less than total agreement with its
customer of 100 years, the Ford Motor Company, millions of whose Explorer sport utility vehicles are
equipped with the Firestone tires involved in the recall.
At a news conference yesterday,
Firestone and Ford offered contradictory advice about the optimum
pressure for the tires. Firestone recommended 30 pounds per square
inch; Ford suggested anywhere between 26 and 30 would be fine.
The difference reflected the contrasting interests of automakers and
tire makers. Automakers advise customers to keep tires fairly soft because this makes the ride less
bouncy. That is particularly true for
sport utility vehicles, which have
stiff truck suspensions but are increasingly purchased by people
more accustomed to the ride of a car.
But soft tires, with more of their
surface area in contact with the
road, suffer more wear, so tire makers favor keeping their products inflated at higher pressure. "Underinflated tires deteriorate more rapidly
than tires that are properly maintained and are at an increased risk of
tread separation, blowout or other
failure," Firestone said.
The conflicting advice prefigures
what are likely to be two critical
chapters in the episode: first, the
government's determination of why
the tires are failing, and then the
apportionment of blame and financial responsibility. More immediately, it spurred expressions of frustration from plaintiffs' lawyers.
"So now what is the consumer
supposed to do?" asked Tab Turner,
a lawyer in Little Rock, Ark., who
has 10 lawsuits filed against both
companies.
What had been a quiet issue for
Firestone and Ford began to turn
into a storm in February, when
someone who had been injured in an
accident involving a Ford Explorer
with Firestone tires contacted
KHOU, a local Houston television
station. The station ran a segment on
possible problems with the tires.
Slowly, other stations picked up on
the story.
"Until that piece ran in Houston,
we'd had maybe 30 or 40 complaints
in 10 years," said Liz Neblett, a
spokeswoman for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
By the time the agency opened its
investigation into the tires on May 2,
it had 90 complaints of injuries related to ATX or Wilderness tires on
Ford Explorers; as of yesterday
morning, there were 270.
"Now, whenever a story runs,
there's another bump in the complaints," Ms. Neblett said.
The flood of lawsuits seems unlikely to abate. The American Trial Lawyers Association has organized a litigation group around the Firestone
tires, in which lawyers representing
plaintiffs across the country can
compare notes, and perhaps consolidate suits.
Those lawyers are sure to resist
the company's efforts to define the
problem narrowly. Both Firestone
and Ford said yesterday that evidence pointed to tires made at the
Decatur plant as the proper focus of
further investigation. But Mr.
Turner and other plaintiffs' lawyers
took issue with Firestone's plan to
replace Wilderness tires made in Decatur with similar tires from other
plants.
"I've got a 35-year-old quadriplegic client on a ventilator, who got
that way when a 1997 Ford Explorer
rolled over after a rear tire separation," Mr. Turner said. "That tire
was made in Wilson, N.C., one of the
plants that is supposed to provide
those safe replacement tires."
Actually, the case against the tires
may not be cut and dried. The same
tires have been used on sport utility
vehicles made by General Motors,
Toyota and other manufacturers
without a particularly high incidence
of failure. Likewise, from 1995
through 1997, many Ford Explorers
used tires made by Goodyear Tire
and Rubber without undue problems
with tread separations, according to
Chuck Sinclair, a Goodyear spokesman.
Moreover, Ford Explorers running on Firestone tires in cold-weather states do not seem to fail more
often than other tires.
Experts assessing the information
available so far suspect that it is the
combination of a burning sun, Ford
Explorers, Firestone tires and drivers' failure to properly inflate them
that can prove lethal.
When a tire is underinflated, there
is more flexing in the sidewall, which
generates more heat. If the vehicle is
carrying lots of people or an otherwise heavy load, the friction gets
worse. Add hot weather and a hot
road, and tire temperature can get
critical. A good tire can generally
endure temperatures as high as 210
degrees without mishap. But at 220
degrees, it can start to disintegrate.
When that happens, even the best
drivers often lose control of their
cars. In such circumstances, the Explorer, with its high center of gravity, is more likely to roll over.
"These vehicles are used by a lot
of different people, in lots of driving
conditions, and a lot of the ways they
use it can lead to tire failure," said
Marvin Bozarth, executive director
of the International Tire and Rubber
Association. "I can probably walk
out and spot five Explorers in half an
hour that are running on underinflated tires. And if they are full of 200-pound people with all their luggage,
the tires will heat up tremendously."
Whoever is ultimately held accountable for the problems with the
tires, the companies with the most to
gain are Firestone's competitors.
Firestone may not have the capacity
to make as many replacement tires
as it needs for the recall; the company said Wednesday it would buy competitor's products if necessary.
So far, tire companies are not using Firestone's woes as an opportunity to claim market share.
"Firestone may be bearing the lion's share of the burden, but something like this is bad for the entire
industry," Goodyear's Mr. Sinclair
said. Indeed, Ms. Karbowiak, the
Firestone spokeswoman, said she got
a note from her counterpart at one
competitive company, offering sympathy and asking how she could help.
Still, other companies certainly
will not turn sales away. Mr. Sinclair
noted that Goodyear had been "looking into our inventory and our manufacturing capabilities, to make sure
we can meet customer demand." Indeed, analysts expect that Firestone's competitors have much to
gain and little to lose by keeping low
profiles right now.
"Tire recalls happen all the time,
and they know what goes around
comes around, that if they go after
Firestone brutally on this one, Firestone will go after them on the next,"
said Mr. Gwirsky of Morgan Stanley.
"And they'll probably gain share by
default, anyway."
Investors clearly think so. On July
31, just before stories in USA Today
called national attention to the problems, Bridgestone shares traded in
Tokyo for 2,515 yen, or $23.32; yesterday, they closed at 2,075, a drop of 17
percent. By contrast, Goodyear's
shares have gone up 18 percent in the
same period, closing yesterday at
$23.56.
