Ford Recommends Higher Tire Level
D E T R O I T, Sept. 22, 2000 -- Ford Motor Co. will now recommend that FordExplorer owners inflate their tires to 30 pounds per square inchafter Bridgestone/Firestone Inc. criticized the automaker incongressional testimony for setting the pressure too low.
The automaker released a letter today saying it was making themove because the company’s testimony “has caused confusion amongour customers.
“In these trying times surrounding the Firestone tire recall,it is important to eliminate this confusion for our customers,”Carlos Mazzorin, Ford’s group vice president for global purchasingand South America, said in the letter.
Mazzorin also noted that Bridgestone/Firestone had agreed withFord’s recommended pressure of 26 psi for 10 years on theExplorer’s 15-inch tires.
Among tires that are not subject to the recall, Firestone andGoodyear tires on Explorers inflated at that level “have shownexcellent performance for our customers,” he said.
The letter says the pressure recommendation applies to Explorerowners with Firestone P235/75R15 tires. It does not say whether itapplies to other tires installed on the Explorer.
A Ford spokesman said no one was available to comment on theletter.
Damning Admission Before CongressThe move comes after a Bridgestone/Firestone executive toldCongress Thursday that the 26 psi level Ford recommends forExplorers is lower than what Bridgestone/Firestone suggests andmakes the popular sport utility vehicle less safe.
“We now know that at 26 psi there is a low safety margin forthe Explorer as compared to some other SUVs,”Bridgestone/Firestone Executive Vice President John Lampe said.“Running an Explorer on low tire pressures, overloaded, in hotclimates appears to be a part of the problem that we’re nowfacing.”
Bridgestone/Firestone last month recalled 6.5 million ATX, ATXII and Wilderness AT tires, most of which were original equipmenton Explorers. Federal investigators have linked the tires to morethan 100 deaths and 400 injuries.
A lower air pressure gives tires more grip and a softer ride,but causes them to wear faster and creates more internal heatbecause of greater friction with the road. Ford has said it set therecommended pressure for Explorer tires at 26 psi in 1989 toimprove stability and ride, and that Bridgestone/Firestone hadagreed with the recommendation at the time.
Blame GameBut experts for trial attorneys suing the two companies havespeculated that heat from the lower pressure weakened the bondbetween the tires and their treads. Thousands of people, most ofthem Explorer owners in warm-weather states, have reported treadseparations, blowouts and other problems with the tires.
Ford has consistently blamed the problems on Firestone, and saidthe design of the Explorer was not at fault.
When the recall was announced in early August,Bridgestone/Firestone recommended that its tires on the Explorer beinflated to between 26 and 30 psi, while Ford continued torecommend 26 psi.
Mazzorin’s letter says that as recently as Aug. 18,Bridgestone/Firestone said the 26 psi recommendation was not amistake. After the hearing Thursday, a Bridgestone/Firestonespokeswoman could not cite any testing the company had donerecently to decide that 26 psi was unsafe, but said the tireindustry accepts 30 psi as the best level.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration beganinvestigating the Firestone tires in May. NHTSA Administrator SueBailey said the agency now is examining how speed, temperature,load and tire pressure affect safety on SUVs.
Lampe said Firestone still has not determined what caused someof its tires to fail, but has focused on possible manufacturingproblems at its plant in Decatur, Ill.
Mazzorin said the tire pressure change “does not address theroot cause of the Firestone tread separations” and said thecompanies needed to find the causes of “the tire manufacturingand/or design defects.”