Saturday June 9
By Tom Brown
DETROIT (Reuters) - The dispute between Ford Motor Co. and tire maker Firestone over deaths and injuries in rollovers of the Explorer sport utility vehicle, billed as one century's great corporate whodunits, holds little mystery for the top state law enforcement official in Florida.
“The way I look at it, both these companies are at fault, and they had better let people know what they knew and when they knew it,'' Florida Attorney General Bob Butterworth told Reuters.
Florida is leading an investigation by attorneys general from across the United States into Firestone tires, mostly fitted on Explorers, that federal regulators have linked to at least 174 deaths and hundreds of injuries on U.S. roadways.
The probe, into an unusually high rate of tread separations and blowouts that caused Explorers to flip over at high speeds, is still ongoing.
But Butterworth, a Democrat now in his 15th year as attorney general, said he has already concluded that Ford and Firestone shared equal blame for having put an inferior tire, rated ``C'' for temperature resistance, on the Explorer.
``I don't know why they decided to put a C-rated tire, for temperature, on a vehicle like this, and a passenger tire at that, not even a light truck tire. For the life of me, I can't understand why they did that,'' said Butterworth, who spoke in an interview late Monday from his office in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
``I would assume that both these companies knew that these tires were bad, way before they notified the public,'' he added.
Ford contends that tires certified with a ``C'' temperature label must meet stringent government standards, and notes that millions of them are fitted on SUVs produced by some of its competitors, including General Motors Corp. and Toyota Motor Co.
But Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. tires, which Ford has said ran virtually trouble-free after being mounted on about 2 million Explorers in the mid-1990s, had a higher ``B'' rating.
Butterworth said the Firestones, built to Ford's specifications, were woefully inadequate -- especially in high temperature states like Florida -- and produced ``a lethal combination'' together with the Explorer, a vehicle which he said is unusually prone to rollovers.
``OFF THE CHARTS''
``Obviously this car does have problems, and we're trying to find out all the problems it has, and whether or not it's possible for that vehicle to stay on the road,'' said Butterworth.
``In Florida we had our Department of Highway Safety do a survey of all single car rollovers of SUVs, and the Explorer was off the charts compared to other vehicles,'' he said.
Ford has taken credit for forcing Firestone, a unit of Japan's Bridgestone Corp. to recall 6.5 million 15-inch Wilderness tires last summer, and Firestone itself acknowledged at the time that the tires were no good.
But Butterworth said state attorneys-general had been pressing all along for a broader recall. Ford announced on May 22 that was replacing all 13 million Firestone Wilderness AT tires on its vehicles.
The move outraged Firestone, which countered that its tires were safe and rushed out its own data claiming that an alleged design flaw in the Explorer was part of the problem.
Butterworth said the blame game between the two companies played straight into the hands of investigators like himself, since it can only help to dig up more dirt on Firestone and America's best-selling SUV.
``If they're getting into a contest of pointing fingers at each other that's fine by me .... The longer they stay out there attacking each other and everything else, it may help get the job done.''
``A DEATH TRAP''
Beyond Ford and Firestone, Butterworth said he would eventually like to launch a broader investigation into all types of SUVs, which he sees as a serious threat to public safety.
``If you bought this vehicle (an SUV) in order to replace the family station wagon it just doesn't do that. This is a truck and it does not drive and handle like a car,'' said Butterworth.
``I don't think that people really realize that this vehicle, that is advertised and packaged as a family fun vehicle, may end up being a death trap.''