I would normally dismiss this as the media crying wolf, but it got a
mention in Automotive News in the May 22 issue. There were 30+
accidents reported involving four deaths at that point. It was enough
of a statistical anomaly that the NHTSA initiated a defect
investigation. (i.e. if the distribution of idiots is more or less
even across tire brands, why are the Firestones blowing out more
often?)
There is another article on Firestone related accidents at
<http://www.khou.com/news/stories/1131.html>. It's mostly kind of
skewed (for example, it doesn't mention reporter Stephen Gauvain was
unbelted in the crash that killed him), but the allegations of "dry"
rubber stock being reused in Firestone tire production are interesting
and disturbing. It could be the Firestone 500 story all over again...
anyway, I don't own these tires, but there is enough credible evidence
of *something* amiss that I would consider ditching them if I did.
Craig Blome
>
> Date: Thu, 03 Aug 2000 14:25:55 -0700
> From: Bill Ozinga <oz@tirerack.com>
> Subject: Re: Firestone SUV Tires Major Failures
>
>
> While I don't want to say there isn't a problem with the tires, I
> wonder how
> many of those incidents are due to underinflation, which seems to the
> main
> cause of "just blew with no warning." On top of that, add in the
> possibility
> that the Ford Explorer could be a bit on the tippy side, you have a
> recipe
> for a problem. (Add in my pet peeve - how many were on the phone at
> the
> time?)
>
> How often do you think people *really* check their tire pressure?
>
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