On Sept. 7, 1997, Melinda Myers of Pearland, Texas,
wrote: "I cannot believe ... Firestone will not take responsibility for the
problems associated with these tires. I would not want the blood on my hands if
I were an employee of your company."Many asked Bridgestone/Firestone to take action
By Sara Nathan, USA TODAY
Bridgestone/Firestone executives have said repeatedly that they weren't aware until late July that treads were peeling off thousands of their tires. Yet consumers — regular, everyday drivers — had been warning the company since at least the mid-1990s that the tires were falling apart on highways, sometimes repeatedly on the same vehicle.
More than 1,100 owners of Firestone ATX tires told the company that accidents triggered by blowouts had put their lives at risk and that mechanics, insurance agents and others were aware of a widespread problem.
Those warnings were contained in claims consumers sent to Bridgestone/Firestone from 1989 to 1999 seeking reimbursement for new tires and damage to vehicles. The company recalled 6.5 million ATX and similar Wilderness AT tires on Aug. 9.
Bridgestone/Firestone agreed to release copies of the complaints to USA TODAY after the newspaper went to court to have the documents, part of a Texas lawsuit, unsealed.
Among the warnings:
On Sept. 7, 1997, Melinda Myers of Pearland, Texas,
wrote: "I cannot believe ... Firestone will not take responsibility for the
problems associated with these tires. I would not want the blood on my hands if
I were an employee of your company."
On Dec. 10, 1997, Robert S. White of Phoenix wrote:
"I was nearly hit by a passing car as I changed the tire by the side of the
interstate and was left shaken and angry by the incident, particularly since
this is the fourth tire of the set of four to show a tread-separation
problem."
On Aug.12, 1999, Fred Moore of Chandler, Ariz., wrote:
"I was surprised and shocked to learn in subsequent discussions with
law-enforcement personnel, body shops and other individuals, who like myself are
automobile buffs, that Firestone has had more than its fair share of tire
failures."
At least two of the complaints came from people who took their vehicles to a Phoenix Ford dealership where estimator Jerry Toth frequently saw Firestone tread separations. "Sometimes I might see three or four a week, and sometimes I wouldn't see any for a couple of weeks," Toth said in an interview last week.
He says he assumed Bridgestone/Firestone knew about the problem because most of his customers said they were sending claims forms to the tiremaker.
Customers who took problem tires to Firestone dealers during those years were told to call a toll-free telephone number for a claim form, company spokesman Daniel Adomitis says. They sent the form and explanations of their tire failures, estimates for repairing damage, photos and damaged tires to regional engineering centers. In some cases, they wrote letters about what happened.
Bridgestone/Firestone's law department supervised the process, contacting some customers directly for more information. Engineers at the regional centers, where the damaged tires were tested, decided, in conjunction with other departments, whether to reimburse the consumers.
Adomitis says Firestone often sent reimbursement checks to satisfy customers, not because it found evidence of tire problems.
Bridgestone/Firestone CEO John Lampe told Congress in September that the company didn't use consumer claims to determine whether there were safety problems with the tires. The data weren't analyzed until late July when Ford Motor, which was using the tires as original equipment on most of its popular Explorer sport-utility vehicles, and federal safety regulators asked for the information.
"For too long, we didn't see the problem," Lampe told Congress. "The tire industry's traditional measures of product performance — test data, analysis of failed tires and adjustment data — told us that these tires were fine. And although we knew we had claims, and we evaluated tires involved in these claims, we did not believe the statistics generated by those claims were a good indicator of tire performance."
Sue Bailey, administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, says the agency, which began investigating the tires in May, would have acted sooner if it had known about the claims. "There would have been a recall years earlier that would have saved lives and been less damaging to the company."
The claims show that Bridgestone/Firestone received 57 complaints about ATX tires from 1989 to 1995. But then the number surged. In 1998 alone, Bridgestone/Firestone received 367 complaints. Of the 119 people NHTSA says have been killed in accidents involving Firestone tires, nearly 90% died after 1995.
Adomitis said the surge in complaints would not have raised red flags, because the company doubled production of ATX tires between 1994 and 2000 to meet demand.
In the early years, consumers assumed they were the only ones with problems. "I thought the problem was isolated to just me," says Edward Lee of Baker, La., who received $350 from Firestone after the tread from an ATX tire damaged his Ford Bronco in 1990.
"They cooperated really well. They paid for the tire and fixed my truck," says David Raiford of Ponchatoula, La., who got $1,200 from Firestone in 1993.
Consumers become suspicious
When the number of complaints started to climb, consumers began thinking they weren't alone.
In 1996, the company received 117 complaints,
including six from consumers reporting tread-separation problems with two or
more tires on the same vehicle. Michael Park of Tempe, Ariz., took his Explorer
to his dealer after the tread peeled off the right rear tire. Later, he
discovered a bubble in the tread on another tire and uneven tread on two others.
"When I brought it in, the estimator told me, 'I bet I can guess what happened. ... I probably write one estimate each month for damage from Firestone tires,'" says Park, who summarized that conversation in his letter to Bridgestone/Firestone.
Scott Reid of Katy, Texas, was thrown to the pavement and knocked unconscious after the tread came off the right rear tire on his Explorer on Sept. 22, 1996. A week later, he watched a TV news report about another tread-separation accident involving Firestone tires and was interviewed for yet another TV report on the accidents. In a letter, he told Firestone he was aware of similar accidents. "There's no question in my mind that somebody at Firestone read my letter and saw that Houston TV news report about one, two, three accidents in a row," he says.
In 1997, Firestone received 202 complaints, many from
Texans who began suggesting that the tires needed to be recalled after Houston
TV reporter Steve Gauvain died June 17, 1996, when the tread peeled off an ATX
tire and his Explorer rolled over.
Myers took her Explorer to three shops, including a Firestone dealership, to have the tires checked after she heard about Gauvain's death. At each, she was told the tires were fine. But on Aug. 4, 1997, the tread came off her right rear tire. She lost control, rammed the side of an 18-wheeler twice, then veered into the highway median strip. The Explorer was totaled, although Myers had only ankle scrapes.
"I do not understand why Firestone has not recalled these tires," Myers wrote the company. " ... I have and will continue to tell everyone I can that these tires are a hazard and should be recalled."
Retired judge Carl Christensen of Las Vegas, now a personal injury lawyer, says he told Bridgestone/Firestone about the problems after the tread came off his left rear tire, causing $875 damage to his Explorer. "They knew about it in '97, because I told them about it," he says. "They wouldn't have paid me and State Farm if they didn't know they were responsible."
On the back of the check Bridgestone/Firestone sent him was a notice that Christensen's signature would release the company from responsibility for further damages. Adomitis says it is standard practice within the industry to ask consumers to sign release forms.
Writing to NHTSA and Ford, too
In 1998, Phoenix attorney David Dannacher wrote to
Firestone after the tread peeled off an ATX tire on his Explorer on Sept. 18,
causing nearly $1,800 damage. Dannacher, who specializes in estate planning,
included copies of letters he sent to Ricardo Martinez, then NHTSA
administrator, and Jacques Nasser, then Ford's executive vice president and now
CEO.
"I am writing this letter because I felt it imperative that you be personally appraised of a situation that involves a known product defect that directly impacts the safety of passengers in Ford products," Dannacher wrote to Martinez. Dannacher says a NHTSA employee sent him a complaint form, which he completed. A NHTSA employee then called him in May, when the agency started its probe, to ask for more information.
In his letter to Nasser, Dannacher, who was told by Toth, the Ford estimator, that the problem was common on Explorers with Firestone tires, wrote: "I also expect Ford to thoroughly investigate this apparent defect immediately and take appropriate action, either in conjunction with Firestone or on their own." He says he got a three-paragraph letter from Ford in October 1998 that began, "The circumstances which you outlined have been given careful consideration," and concluded, "We are unable to be of further assistance in this matter."
Firestone sent Dannacher a check for the cost of new tires and repairing the damage to his vehicle.
Toby Tubbs of Ruston, La., wrote to Firestone after the second of four tires he bought in 1996 lost its tread. "I think they should have known about it a lot earlier, just by putting two and two together," he says.
In 1999, Bridgestone/Firestone received 353 complaints
. John Hall, president of a civil engineering firm in Coral Gables, Fla., sent
the company a form on May 19, 1999, asking to be reimbursed for $1,200 in damage
to his Explorer. He included a letter addressed to Bridgestone/Firestone's
then-CEO Masatoshi Ono describing problems with five of his tires.
"All five failed due to tread separation. The last nearly resulted in a serious accident," he wrote. "I address this to you because I fear that my experience (five out of five) cannot be unique, and as president of my own company, I would want to know."
A Bridgestone/Firestone attorney and a paralegal called Hall a few days later to discuss the damage to his Explorer. Hall says he told them his primary concern was notifying the company of the problem so it could make sure other people weren't involved in accidents with these tires.
"I told them, 'Imagine how we will feel if somebody dies and we didn't do as much as we could,'" he says.
Hall says that seven days later he read about the death of Jose Fernandez, 36, Miami's assistant city attorney, after the tread peeled off a tire on his Explorer.
"When it hits that close to home — a young father in my community killed — you wonder: Could that have been prevented if they acted quickly? That was a lot more important than the $1,200 check they sent me," he says.