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NHTSA hit on tire recall
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June 19, 2001: 7:55 p.m. ET
House members question agency's efforts in Ford-Firestone dispute
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NEW YORK (CNNfn) - Congressional hearings kicked off Tuesday on the recall of Firestone tires by Ford Motor Co. with new criticism of the tiremaker, the automaker and federal safety regulators.
With the chief executives of Bridgestone/Firestone Inc. and Ford in the room waiting to testify, opening statements by members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee's oversight and investigations subcommittees questioned the quality of information being provided to the public by the two companies, and lack of information from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
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 CNN's Tim O'Brien reports on Ford-Firestone congressional hearing. |
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"The role of honest broker, which is the duty of NHTSA, has been surrendered to two very threatened firms," said Rep. James Greenwood, R-Pa., chairman of the subcommittee. While he said he is not accusing the two companies of intentionally misleading the public, he pointed out questions that have been raised by both companies' analyses that point the blame at the other.
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A congressional hearing Tuesday looked into the problem of tread separation of Firestone Wilderness AT tires. This tire failed during laboratory tests by Ford, but Bridgestone/Firestone questioned the validity of the tests and the safety of the Ford Explorer. | |
"Both companies may be expected to produce analyses that strengthen their own positions," Greenwood said.
Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., criticized the Bush administration for not yet appointing an administrator for NHTSA, saying lack of even an acting NHTSA administration is hampering the investigation.
Rep. Billy Tauzin, R-La., said there are questions about the safety of the tires being used as replacements, saying claims rates for some of them are worse than the claims rates of some of the Firestone tires being replaced.
"The public surely must be confused today," Tauzin said. "It's the job of NHTSA to come up with reasonable standards of when tires pose a risk to the consumers. NHTSA needs to ride to the rescue here and clear up this confusion very quickly."
Tauzin called for NHTSA to provide analysis within 30 days of the safety record of the replacement tires versus the Firestone tires involved in the current recall. Jac Nasser, CEO of Ford (F: down $0.26 to $24.74, Research, Estimates), said that he had not seen Tauzin's data on the other tires, but that it would act immediately if there is an indication of safety problems with the replacement tires.
"We shouldn't be waiting 30 days. If that's accurate we should be acting within 30 minutes," Nasser said. "If the data that only you have is accurate, we'll act on it."
Congressional investigators told CNN General Tire's Grabber and the Goodyear Wrangler HT are among seven tires made by four companies that have a tread separation claims rate higher than the Firestone Wilderness tires now being replaced by Ford.
Ford recently sent letters to owners of Ford Explorers and other vehicles affected by the recall and recommended numerous tires, including the seven tires now in question, as possible replacements.
According to sources, the General Grabber has a separation claims rate of 10.9 per million; the Goodyear Wrangler HT's separation claims rate is 13.7 per million. Ford considers claim rates of 5 per million too high.
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Ford's CEO testified the company is recalling tires to protect the safety of its customers. | |
Tauzin acknowledged that claims data is not the same as safety and tire failure data, and that the data needs to be examined before anyone can say if the replacement tires are safer or more dangerous than the tires in the current recall.
Ford announced plans in May to replace about 13 million Firestone tires used on its vehicles. Bridgestone/Firestone insists those tires are safe and that Ford is replacing them to divert attention away from safety problems with its Explorer sport/utility vehicle. The tiremaker announced the day before the recall announcement that it would no longer sell tires to Ford.
Michael Jackson, deputy transportation secretary, was prepared to tell the hearing that the NHTSA is conducting an analysis to determine if a formal investigation of the safety of the Ford Explorer is justified.
"The department and NHTSA are giving this matter full consideration," Jackson said in prepared testimony made public before he began speaking.
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Jackson also said that NHTSA's investigation into whether to expand last year's recall of 6.5 million Firestone tires will close earlier than expected. Testing will be completed by the end of next week and results announced in a month, Jackson's testimony said.
Nasser, in opening comments, said Ford had no choice but to replace the tires, based on its data. He said about 1 million of the 13 million tires involved in the latest recall already have been replaced.
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Tiremaker CEO questioned the safety of the Ford Explorer. | |
"Without this action our customers' safety would have been at risk," he said. He also defended the safety of the Explorer, saying its statistics show it is safer than other sport/utility vehicles.
"It bears repeating, this is a tire issue and only a tire issue," he said. "The government confirmed last year this is a tire problem."
But prepared comments from Firestone's Lampe showed that the tiremaker was again ready to blame the Explorer for the safety problems.
"No one cares more about the safety of the people who travel on our tires than we do," said Lampe's prepared remarks. "We're doing our part. We're taking responsibility for our products. We did a massive recall. And now we're doing what's right by asking the tough questions about the Ford Explorer."
"Firestone tires that are on the road are completely safe," Lampe said, appearing after Nasser Tuesday afternoon.
He alleged Ford Explorers without Firestone tires are still experiencing rollover problems in Venezuela, and said Ford "replacing good tires with other tires" is a diversionary tactic.
Nasser did concede that some of the Firestone tires involved in the current recall are apparently world-class tires that do not appear to have safety problems – specifically tires made at the Aiken County, S.C. – but said that the tires needed to be included in the recall because of loss of customer confidence in the Firestone products.
"We didn't want our customers to be crawling under the vehicle and looking to see if they have Aiken tires," he said. "I would qualify it as a customer assurance issue."
Nasser defended the decision to replace all the tires even if not all the tires being recalled had been tested. He said the company's analysis raised enough concerns that it could no longer wait to act.
"As we've already seen, the committee will be battered with competing data and competing analysis," he said in his opening statement. "We think the (Ford) testing was valid and indicative of what the tires would go through and that it's a fair test."
Nasser said he termed the Bridgestone/Firestone test that pointed to safety problems with the Explorer as seriously flawed.
Nasser said that, despite the criticisms and the charges that have flowed between Ford and Firestone, the two companies have cooperated well on data exchange about the safety problems.
"It is an emotional issue when you're dealing with customer safety," Nasser said.
Comments by members of the committees said they believe there needs to be some further analysis by an independent source such as NHTSA about both the Explorer and the tires.
"We know there is a toxic cocktail that results when you put Ford explorer and Firestone tires together," said Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass.
In a show of support for Ford, roughly 3,500 members of the United Auto Workers drove to the nation's capital for a Tuesday rally. They drove 1,900 Explorers into the city, but police limited the caravan to 800 vehicles because of traffic concerns. 
-- Reuters contributed to this report.
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