Apparently, Ford Explorer Owners are Idiots

In My Humble Opinion
1

As most of you undoubtedly know by now, there has been a major recall of Bridgestone/Firestone tires. The tires’ treads have been coming off at high speed, especially in warmer weather, causing the vehicles to go out of control. So far, this problem has caused 46 reported deaths and 80 reported injuries.

Most, but not all, of the defective tires are on Ford Explorers.

From this week’s Newsweek(Aug. 21, p. 60): “Firestone says its tires are not badly designed, but are being improperly maintained by customers,” and “Firestone executives blame consumers for not keeping their tires properly inflated.”

From the Bridegestone/Firestone site : We believe that these tires, when properly inflated and maintained, are among the safest on the road. Most reported incidents of accidents related to these tires have involved under-inflated, improperly maintained or damaged tires, often operated in very warm climates.

So, Bridgestone/Firestone is saying that it is not the tires’ fault–it is the customers’ fault for not maintaining them properly.

Okay, we all know that many people do not maintain their tires properly. But we also know that tires are usually designed to take a certain amount of human error into account. Tires may not be idiot-proof, but they are certainly idiot-resistant.

So why are these tires, and ONLY these tires disintegrating in large numbers?

If we are to accept the notion that there is nothing inherently wrong with these particular Firestones, then it must follow that the owners of these tires must be far more negligent and idiotic than the populace at large.

And since the vast majority of the tires are on Ford Explorers, and most injuries and deaths have occurred with Ford Explorers, we must conclude that the owners of Ford Explorers must be more negligent and idiotic than the populace at large.

So, according to Bridgestone/Firestone, Ford Explorer owners are idiots.

Now, I can not think of any reason that idiocy and negligence might be more prevalent among Explorer owners than in the rest of the population. I, like many others, have serious criticisms of SUVs in general, but I still can’t accept the sweeping notion that that Explorer owners must be idiots. And even if the Explorer owners don’t share my environmental concerns, I have no reason to think that they maintain their vehicles poorly.

Your thoughts?

[Edited by slythe on 08-16-2000 at 06:10 PM]

2

IIRC, Firestone released a huge batch of “defective” tires from one of its factories (the name escapes me now). And during the summer weather at high temperatures they expanded more than normal due to the quality of the rubber therefor changing the pressure, so it is most likely not the consumer’s fault. The change in pressure imho has nothing to do with it, its that when expanded the treads put onto the tire do not expand at the same rate and therefor tear off. Looks like Firestone is in for some big time lawsuits.

3

BTW…Ford and Firestone go back to 1906. That was the first year Firestone tires appeared on a Ford automobile, and 2 years before the Model T. Henry Ford was a friend of Harvey Firestone.
Of course, we’re in our 4th generation of Fords and Firestone got acquired by Bridgestone (Japan) a while back, but the two companies still do a lot of business with each other.

4

Hey, try to be a little more tactful. My father owns a Ford Explorer, and he’s not an idiot. In fact, he is a very careful man. After all, he is an insurance agent.

5

Hey, try and read the OP a little more carefully. Green Bean was only paraphrasing Ford’s PR approach.

6

I dunno, Ricepad, my dad owns an Explorer, and he most definitely is an idiot.

7

Thanks, ricepad. Yes, JosephFinn, the point of my post was to criticize Firestone’s implication that Explorer owners are idiots.

8

In the world of public relations, we call this a “gaffe” or in less ceremonius language, “a major screw-up.”

A blame-the-victim approach is always the worst way for a company to respond to a product flaw. Now Bridgestone/Firestone has a phalanx of highly paid PR consultants running behind them, trying to undo the damage that’s already been done, but it’s probably too late.

9

They said this batch was made when there was a strike at the plant. Then they say that has nothing to do with it.

10

Yeah, I agree, kunilou. My husband and I were talking about just that last night.

He was wondering if this would end up putting Bridgestone/Firestone out of business. (I would not be surprised if it ultimately did.) So we were wondering what companies have survived a problem like this–a problem where their product made people die–and why these companies were able to survive.

The Tylenol/cyanide incident sprang to mind. The obvious difference is that Tylenol called a full and immediate recall, money back, no questions asked. They did demonstrate that they were not really at fault, but they took responsibility for the problem, fixing it as best they could, considering 8(?) people were already dead. It did take a while for people to start trusting them again, but they eventually came back stronger than ever. Their sound handling of a really bad situation ultimately worked out to be a public relations boon.

Bridgestone/Firestone, OTOH…well, I wonder why they are handling it the way they are. A set of tires is far more expensive than a bottle of Tylenol, and tires are also more problematic to switch out. But how many have died so far? And if someone wants to take a chance and keep driving on the defective tires becuase Firestone won’t pay for new tires yet, they are putting me and my family at risk. If they lose it on the highway, their out-of-control vehicle could easily take another vehicle out with it.

11

I have to chime in on this one. I work for the (ready for it?) Office of Defects Investigation, of the National Highway Traffice Safety Administration, in the Dept of Transportation. I’m a co-op but I’m still an investigator. Now, to attempt to set the record straight.

Allegedly, Firestone made some defective tires at their plant in Decatur Ill. in the mid 1990’s. This is no secret.
Now, when Firestone says that many of the incidents involving their tires were due to improper care and maintainence they’re serious, they’re not just blowing smoke up the public’s skirt. I haven’t seen all of the reports but I have seen some. Many were very legit, but a good many were also because the driver of the vehicle was simply being careless.

Often times there are factors involved in a crash that have nothing to do with the vehicle at all, ie substance abuse, tired driver, that sort of thing (this was not the case with the reports that I saw, but is not uncommon at all). The media, however, does not always get wind of this, especially when there are numerous reports. Environmental conditions play a big part in these kinds of things as well. The states that the incidents are mostly occuring in (Texas, California, Florida, and Arizona) are notorious for their extremely rough environments for parts involving rubber. And heat and presure have everything to do with this particular case. I’m not going to go into details, but the dynamics of tires from start to stop are brutal. So much so, that the government is rethinking standards for how to test tires.

Now, I’m not trying to defend Firestone, or manufacturers in general. I’m just trying to share all the information. Some times big manufacturers will try to hide the truth, but usually not. Firestone did not try to hide the truth.

Bottom line is Firestone’s tires don’t work as well as they should. But I don’t think this media frenzy is deserved. This is not that big of a deal. There are millions of tires out there, and only a handful involved in unfortunate incidents. The failure rate is only a little larger than what could be accounted for by chance. They are doing the recall, which is exactly what they are supposed to do. Firestone’s being pretty upright about the whole situation. There will be people that still won’t be satisified. But then again, there always are.

This is probably going to come back to haunt me, but like I said, it’s not as big a deal as the media makes it out to be.

-Murph

12

Green Bean:
My apologies for my mis-construing your comments. Sorry for the misunderstanding.

13

No problemo. Thanks for writing back.

14

Has this been proven?

Have any numbers on what the frequency of blowouts on Goodyear/Micheline/Firestone/Pirelli etc is?

I don’t, and I wouldn’t make an assertion, based on others’ undocumented assertions that this is the case.

15

Didn’t Firestone have a problem with tires about 20 or 25 years ago, too?

16

Total hijack, here -

An old friend of mine’s last name is Feuerstein. It’s not an easy name to spell, so whenever her family goes out to restaurants or what-have-you and have to give their name, they give the name Firestone. Any-who, a few years ago they all went out, and since there was a line her sister gave the hostess that name. The hostess asked how to spell it, and the sister said, “T-I-R-E.” I wish I could tell you how much and WHY that amuses me so.

I’m done. The grown-ups may continue.

17

Amusing experience…

I’ve got the whole Firestone thing on my mind often (like I said, my dad’s Explorer has 'em, and I often drive it to take my brother to work).

Anyway, today I saw a commercial advertising four new Firestone tires for $100. For some reason, this struck me as the most idiotic sales campaign since the Mach 3 debacle.

18

Well…I have an '82 Ford F150 Explorer with those tires on it…had a blowout in June, took the tire off, and found that the inside sidewall had a tear in it. Not a cut or a puncture, but an actual tear about 2.5 inches long. I was just getting on the freeway when this happened, but if I were at normal interstate speeds, I most likely would have lost control.

Today I pick up 4 new tires!!! (Not Firestone)

19

I saw on the NBC Nightly News that there was some dispute between Firestone and Ford about the proper inflation pressure. Ford, in an effort to make the Explorer less likely to roll over, recommends inflating the tires to (IIRC) 30-32 psi, where Firestone says they need 38 psi. The lower pressure keeps more rubber on the road, but it also causes more friction (and therefore more heat).

So really, Firestone is calling the Ford engineers idiots for recommending the lower pressure.