Were the Firestone tires recalled only for Ford owners? A friend bought a Chevy pick-up around the time the whole mess broke. His tires are Wilderness tires, but he was told his tires were ok. Makes me wonder: Now that I think of it, it seems ONLY owners of Fords (esp. Explorers) were encouraged to pursue Firestone for info on the recall.
Is this correct? Has any non-Ford owner been encouraged to swap out their Wilderness tires under the recall?
Were any Bridgestone tires recalled?
What about off-brand tires made by Firestone/Bridgestone?
The Firestone tires are perfectly safe and actually have a better safety record than a lot of other tires that aren’t being recalled. The big problem is SUV’s and other cars with a higher center of gravity plus lazy owners who don’t inflate their tires properly.
Here’s what happens. Most people rarely check their tire pressure, so their running on far less pressure than is safe. This leads to increase wear and greater chances of a blowout at freeway speeds. Combine this with a big, top heavy vehicle that’s just itchin’ to flip over and you have lots of fatalities.
Light trucks like pickups and SUV’s don’t have reinforced roofs and doors like passenger cars, this was a compromise congress made back in the 70’s to appease the auto industry. They planned to go back later and make all the modern safety features mandatory but never got around to it for years, they are only now considering them. So the SUV is far more likely to flip and less structurally sound when it does flip. Since the SUV has replaced the station wagon as the family transportation, you’ve got a lot of kids in these vehicles.
Americans have a bigger is better mentality and can’t imagine that their gigantic land yacht isn’t safer than a passenger car, but for many types of accidents this is exactly the case. Sheer bulk and mass only makes you safer in a few limited types of crashes.
So tell your friend to check the tire pressure regularly, and avoid rollovers (if you can). And wear a seatbelt.
Ford just wants to protect their highly profitable SUV market and blame someone else for design flaws in popular cars. Many similar vehicles are very easy to flip, Izusu Rodeos, Mitsubishi Monteros, Jeep Grand Cherokees. Remember the Suzuki Samurai scandal of the mid 80’s? These cars are almost as bad.
Sorry for the long post(much caffeine today), but okay I’ll try to address it more directly.
Ford recalled the Firestone tires. Firestone did not agree to the recall, its merely a way of Ford covering there butt. If your friend has a Chevy pickup, neither Chevy nor Firestone is likely to replace his tires for free. Recalls are serious and profitable for the independent stores and dealerships, they get paid by the recall originator to do the “free” work you receive in a recall.
So if your friend has taken the tires to a reputable chain store or dealership and was told his tires are safe and not subject to recall, then most likely there is no recall on those particular tires. If they were subject to recall the tire shop would happily do the work on the spot no questions asked.
Is your friend concerned about the safety of the tires? Or is there another issue here?
Space Otter hit the nail on the head. Consider this: How often do you check the pressure in your tires? Often? If so, what is it right now? I don’t say that to be a smart ass, but seriously. Even if the tires look inflated to a safe degree, they still might not be.
Didn’t Ford have a lower set air pressure for their tires on SUV’s? Didn’t that start in Sudia Arabia where they need it in the sand for better traction or something?
Overall I’d feel perfectly safe with Firestone tires. There’s only one problem…I’m only 15.
Admittedly, I have a vested self-interest in the Ford/Firestone fiasco as an employee of an interested party…
The Goodyear tires on the Explorers HAVE NOT exhibited the same failure characteristics as the Firestone tires. That is, lower-than-average ability drivers who let their tires pop on them, who have Goodyear tires, don’t roll over. Period.
Goodyear tires have reinforcement to prevent tread separation when they fail. When tread separation occurs, and you slam on your brakes, you can lose control of your vehicle. That’s why you NEED TO KNOW how to drive. Jeesh, you don’t SLAM your BRAKES when you have a flat tire.
I’ve personally had TWO Firestone tires fail on my. Both on Ford rear-wheel drive vehicles, both on the driver’s side. One was a Ford Grand Marquis (yes, “Ford” Grand Marquis) and one was a Ford Ranger. The car, being a car, behaved reasonably well with the blown tire. BUT, I didn’t slam on my brakes. The truck, on the other hand, was a bit scary due to the higher center of gravity. But, I was doing 80mph in 90° heat, and, by being a skilled driver, I didn’t kill myself.
Firestone, NOT Ford, needs to recall a heck of a lot more of their cheap, dangerous tires.
Well, Ford DOES need to take responsibility, too. I’m not saying Ford’s not guilty of something. Ford is responsible for the “whole product,” which includes the Firestone tires. Ford needs to do good by its customers (it is), then go after Firestone for Ford’s losses.
Balthisar, yes in a sense cheap tires are a problem. Most consumers (and manufacturers) don’t want to spend the money neccesary to get the appropriate quality tires for their humungous SUV because those extra large sizes with specialized offroad tread designs are really expensive. And this for mostly city driving. The consumer usually didn’t consider this when they bought the car.
But the #1 problem is still going to be not keeping any tire properly inflated. If you keep them inflated right they aren’t going to suddenly fail.
Goodyear makes really nice tires, but usually at an added cost. A high speed blowout is dangerous with any kind of tire, and in a top heavy vehicle even more so. You don’t need to have a tire failure to roll these vehicles. Sharp cornering will do it. A lower profile vehicle pulling out of a driveway in front of you can be the perfect ramp to send a SUV onto its side, etc. So even the best tires won’t entirely protect you, they just help in certain situations.
So then, how does one determine proper inflation pressure - owners manual, door sill sticker or tire sidewall? All three of mine say different things. And I have aftermarket tires too.
Seems like this very issue was one of the complications in the whole Ford/Firestone mess. The tire sidewalls said something like 35 psi was safe for the tire and Ford recommended only 28 psi (presumably to give the SUVs a more squishy and less bouncy ride).
AFAIK the psi indicated on the tirewall is a “do not exceed” pressure, not a recommended operating pressure. Your best bet is to go with the value on the inside of your door. I was recently scolded by some guy for not knowing that distinction, so I hope it is true as I don’t take kindly to being scolded at by people I don’t know.
It is amusing that the owner’s manual differs in value from the inside-door value, but I’d stick with the inside door myself.
This link explains which tires were recalled by Ford and which vehicle models were affected. It also lists some firestone tires that are not affected by the recall. Apparently, there are different models of Wilderness AT tires and they’re not all a problem.
I don’t have the links handy but IIRC, Firestone did determine that some models of the tires were defective but Ford compounded the problem by recommending an incorrect tire pressure for their vehicles so the both contributed to the problem. Eliminate one of the other factor and your chances for experiencing problems go down. This at least partially explains why your friend (driving a Chevy, and presumably with the correct tire pressure) was told he was ok. It also may be that he doesn’t have the same model tire that was involved in the recall.
Yeah, I meant to have added that point. Part of the reason for the tire failures is something called OEM manufacturing. This means that you, as in individual, don’t have a ability to purchase the exact tire “on the street” as Ford purchases from Firestone. They may have the some “model number” but they’ll have different DOT (dept. of trans.) codes and so on.
Also, because of the pressure that companies (such as Ford, GM, Daimler-Chrysler) put on their suppliers (such a Firestone) to cut costs, these suppliers cut corners that they don’t have to cut for sold-to-consumer tires. Depending on the pressure and the shortcuts taken, the same model number of tire can be very different depending if it come as original equipment on a Ford, GMC, or out of the Firestone factory.
These points are absolutely true. But the Firestone recall issue isn’t about people who rolled their SUVs due to center-of-gravity issues, such as sharp turns, etc. It’s about people who roll their SUVs due to tire blowouts. The evidence shows that, for these types of cases, Goodyear tires don’t suffer from tread separation, causing the vehicle to roll over, killing its occupants (and people in stupid little cars who happen to be in the way).
The biggest factor in survivability in any type of tire failure is the skill of the driver. Experience doesn’t really matter, but knowledge does (who wants to have lots of rollover experience?). Without a rear, driver-side tire (one of the motive tires), a vehicle is still manageable with a qualified driver. Unfortunately, the impulse is to panic, step on the brake, and upset the whole balance of the vehicle. So, despite the fact that Firestones tread-separate a WHOLE lot more than Goodyears (the other OEM tire for Explorers), some of the blame needs to be put on drivers.
For every reported death due to Firestone tires in an Explorer, there are hundreds of skilled drivers who have not been injured in similar circumstances.