From http://www.strategicsafety.com/mainindex.html

[Updated 11/20/00]

[See HEADLINE LINKS below]

Recent litigation against Ford and Continental-General has uncovered a disturbing trend of tread separation problems that have left 19 dead and many more injured when tire tread separation precipitates rollovers in Ford Bronco II's. This problem, which began before the Firestone and Explorer problem, reflects many of the same issues being evaluated today.

In 1993 The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) opened a low-level investigation into General GT52S (size 205/75R15), Ameri-Way XT (sizes 205-235/75R15) and Ameri-Trac (size 235/75R15), as well as other similar private label tires made from 1988-1993. The investigation was opened to examine various tire failure complaints, including tread separation and blow-out in the subject tires. The agency closed the investigation several months later based on the fact that available data did not support a safety-related defect trend at the time. However, recently uncovered evidence suggests that important information were withheld from the safety agency that could have affected the outcome of the inquiry.

The General GT52s was designed and sold as an original equipment for the Ford Bronco II and according to Ford it was used only on 41,931 1986-1988 models, which represents 5 percent of the total production (766,109) of Bronco II models sold. Ford submitted this information to NHTSA in a separate investigation that preceded the General Tire inquiry (EA89-013). The GT52S tires were made in General Tire's Mt. Vernon plant from 1986 through 1988.

There have been 19 confirmed fatalities and 58 injuries resulting from accidents involving tread separation of General GT52S tires on Bronco II models.

As of July 1999 there were 27 claims of Bronco II rollover alleging tire failures with tires other than the GT52S [18 Firestone, 4 Goodyear, 1 Michelin, 4 BF Goodrich].

While Bronco IIs with GT52S tires accounted for only 5 percent of the total Bronco IIs sold, they account for more than 50 percent of the tread separation rollovers.

At the time of the NHTSA investigation there were 9 fatal injuries, 5 involved the Bronco II with GT52S tires--thus an additional 14 fatalities have occurred since the investigation closed. [Note:

[NOTE: Continental-General contends that it produced 1.2 million GT52S tires. However, the company has failed to provide any data to support this number and testimony of General Tire employees and executives indicate that the company routinely inflated production numbers. General Tire still cannot explain the 1 million-tire discrepency.]

Included in the NHTSA investigation were private label equivalents to the GT52S that were produced for General Tire's distributor Big O. Big O is a franchiser with 440 dealers' primarily in the Western U.S., which sold private label tires under various names, including the Legacy II, and Sun Valley III. These tires were clearly part of NHTSA's investigation.

While the Legacy II, Sun Valley III, and other Big O distributed tires were included in the NHTSA inquiry, Continental-General never produced documents that would have revealed high rates of tread separation problems with these tires. In fact, tread separation problems were so frequent that General agreed to initiate a secret recall, referred to as a "Confidence Campaign", in which General agreed to take back tires in dealers stock. Later the company agreed to pay for new tires for Big O customers only after they experienced tread separations. Kenneth Wittnauer, Continental-General's attorney who submitted the responses to NHTSA's investigation claimed that its "Confidence Campaign" was not a recall and that this and the tread separation problems they were experiencing with tires that were under investigation were related to a dispute between General and Big O and therefore not responsive to the safety agency requests. Further Wittnauer claimed that communication between General and Big O regarding remedies for the high tread separation rates were withheld from NHTSA because this was not part of the agency request, even though they involved tires that were part of the investigation.

Former NHTSA head of defects investigation Michael Brownlee reviewed the documents produced in litigation stated that he would not have closed the inquiry if the these documents were produced to the agency at the time of the investigation. Brownlee also stated "The documents present strong evidence of a safety-related defect. It is likely a safety-related defect would have been found by NHTSA had the investigation continued."

Adjustment data show that General tires and the tires it made for Big O were experiencing tread separation problems in warm weather states at a much greater rate.

Adjustment data for the GT52S from 1990-1994 (previous data has allegedly been destroyed, according to Continental-General) show more than 50 percent of the tires adjusted were from warm climate states (TX, AZ, NV, and CA)--31 percent adjustments occurred in Arizona and Nevada even though these states only account for 2 percent of Bronco II sales.

General Tire points the finger at Ford for the rollover problem with the Bronco II. In a 1995 General tire court document in a case involving a GT 52S tread separation and Bronco II rollover, General Tire stated "vehicles which are reasonably designed will not roll over as a result of tread separation" and that the plaintiff's injuries were caused by the handling and stability defects in the Bronco II.

The fatality rate for the Continental-General GT52S that was original equipment on Ford Bronco II models is much higher than the fatality rate for the Firestone tires. At least 102 fatalities attributed to Firestone tires are now known; however the population of tires, compared to the number of Continental-General GT52S is much greater.

WATCH FOR MORE UPDATES...

HEADLINE NEWS LINKS

Former official questions tire probe's closing (10/9/00) Chicago Sun-Times

Continental General Tires Linked to Accidents (10/4/00) ABC News [Video Link]

Earlier Tire Probe Draws Fire (10/4/00) Washington Post

Continental General Faces Queries on Tires Supplied for Ford Broncos (10/4/00) Wall Street Journal

Continental May Have Understated Problem (10/4/00) Reuters

Ariz. replaced General tires (10/25/00) Chicago Sun-Times

Tire Maker Vigorously Fighting Crash Lawsuits (11/20/00) LA Times

General Tire Accused of Deceiving U.S. in Probe (11/20/00) LA Times