FINDLAY, Ohio -- Since the recall of Firestone tires last month, federal regulators report increased safety complaints against Ohio-based Cooper Tire & Rubber. Co.
But the agency has not decided whether additional investigations are needed, Tim Hurd, spokesman for the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration, said Friday.
Bridgestone/Firestone last month recalled 6.5 million tires, most of which were original equipment on Ford Explorers.
NHTSA began an investigation in May and so far has linked the Firestone tires to more than 100 U.S. traffic deaths.
Several lawsuits have been filed against Cooper. One case resulted in a $3.5 million wrongful death judgment. A Mississippi jury awarded the damages to the family of a woman killed in a rollover accident caused by tread separation on the Ford Bronco II she was riding in.
The New York Times reported Friday that its review of accident reports and court records showed that early tread separation in Cooper tires has been named as the cause of accidents that led to at least 35 deaths over the last six years.
Patricia J. Brown, spokeswoman for Findlay-based Cooper, said in a written statement that the highway safety agency had not contacted the company and that there is no reason for a recall of Cooper products.
"Cooper continually monitors product information from the field," Brown said. "We have re-examined our data from 1994 to the present and have determined that there is no common factor in claims such as tire type, brand, size, date or location of production, or any other indicator that would suggest we have safety issues with our tires."
She said Cooper is willing to turn over its data to the NHTSA when asked to do so.
Hugh Smith, a Tampa, Fla., attorney who has one suit pending against Cooper Tire in El Paso, Texas, said he has seen both design and manufacturing problems contribute to fatal accidents. The El Paso suit resulted from an accident that killed four and injured three others riding in a Mazda minivan whose tire tread separated.
He said he plans to file another suit next month in Florida in the death of a 19-year-old Florida man killed while driving an older model Ford pickup with Cooper tires.
"You're always talking a relatively low percentage of total production that have problems," Smith said Friday. "I can document probably 60 other suits against Cooper."
Most of those involve tread separation problems similar to those with the recalled Firestone tires, Smith said. They usually occur in vehicles being driven at high speeds in warmer, southern states.