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Venezuela may ban Fords
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May 28, 2001: 11:00 a.m. ET
Consumer agency may bar Explorer sales following rollover accidents
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CARACAS, Venezuela (CNN) - Venezuela's consumer protection agency, INDECU, is expected Tuesday to formally recommend that the country's attorney general ban the sale of Ford Explorers following accidents tied to rollovers.
Agency officials said the recommendation would be announced at a news conference Monday citing possible vehicle defects. But that conference has now been postponed until Tuesday.
No immediate action by the attorney general was expected. INDECU officials will point to 46 deaths through last year involving Ford (F: Research, Estimates) Explorers.
The action is the latest involving the recall of millions of Firestone tires last year that mostly were installed on new Ford Explorers and were implicated in numerous rollover fatalities. Ford and Firestone have pinned the blame on each other. Last week, Ford said it plans to replace up to 13 million Firestone tires.
Ford has said it will replace Firestone Wilderness AT tires installed on its Explorers sold in Venezuela.
The recall has led to a bitter fight between Ford and Bridgestone/Firestone, both of which ended a relationship last week dating back more than 100 years to when Harvey Firestone first supplied tires to Henry Ford before he founded Ford Motor.
INDECU said last week it suspects that problems with the vehicle rather than the tires had caused fatal crashes, and it would ask the nation's public prosecutor to back its call for the ban of the S/UV.
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INDECU director Samuel Ruh Rios told Reuters last week that studies carried out by the institute since last August showed that out of 50 accidents in Venezuela involving Ford Explorers, only one involved a vehicle using Firestone tires. 
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