Dow Jones Business News
Monday, December 11, 2000; 9:08 AM
Ford Motor Co. and Bridgestone/Firestone Inc. are expected to tell government investigators Monday that both have come to the conclusion that their workers weren't to blame for the failure of Firestone tires on Ford's popular Explorer sport-utility vehicles, the Associated Press reported.
Instead, the companies are expected to focus on problems in the tire-manufacturing process involving adhesives and a layer of rubber between the tires' steel belts, other sources said.
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration figures link 148 deaths to separations, blowouts, and other tread problems in Firestone's ATX, ATX II and Wilderness AT tires, and 6.5 million of these tires were recalled this summer. Many were standard equipment on the Explorers.
Blaming the tire design and manufacturing processes could counter theories that underqualified replacement workers made faulty tires during a 1995-1996 strike at Firestone's Decatur, Ill., factory, or that regular workers' poor performance was responsible.
Separately, Bridgestone/Firestone's new American boss, John Lampe, told The Wall Street Journal in an interview published Monday that anyone expecting a simple answer to the tire-failure question will be disappointed.
"We've gone well beyond any thought that there's one cause," Mr. Lampe said, "because there's not. It's going to be a combination of causes."
Mr. Lampe, who took over as chairman and chief executive two months ago, said Firestone, the U.S. unit of Japan's Bridgestone Corp., has been working closely with Ford to identify the cause of the failure of Firestone tires on the Explorer vehicles, and he believes their working relationship has improved recently.
"I think it was strained and probably still is strained to a certain extent," he says. "But things have improved."
In a wide-ranging interview, Mr. Lampe said the company is confident of its financial stability even in the face of mounting litigation.
Firestone faces at least 200 personal-injury lawsuits arising from tire-related accidents, as well as a host of class-action suits. Some plaintiffs' attorneys have fretted that the U.S. unit might eventually decide to seek bankruptcy protection and have sought to add the Japanese parent company's name to their suits as a precaution.
However, Mr. Lampe maintains that Firestone's pockets are deep enough to weather the storm.