The Savage Nation, Friday, April 11, 2008!

July 25, 2001
A Continental Tire Is Under Scrutiny
By MATTHEW L. WALD

One model of tire that the Ford Motor Company is using to replace Firestone Wilderness AT’s has a higher rate of damage claims than the Firestones do, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said today as it opened a defect inquiry into the tire.

The tire in question, the General Ameri*550 AS, made by Continental, has caused 7 crashes, including 2 rollovers, with 17 injuries, the traffic agency said. But it warned that the inquiry did not mean the tires were dangerous.

‘’The opening of this defect investigation does not mean that N.H.T.S.A. has concluded that these tires contain a safety-related defect or that they are not ‘safe,’ ‘’ the agency said in a report on the replacement tire. ‘’Rather, it reflects a decision that issues have been raised that warrant further investigation by the agency.’’

The safety of the Ameri*550 was first questioned by the House Energy and Commerce Committee at a hearing a month ago where Jacques A. Nasser, Ford’s chairman, was asked about his company’s $3 billion plan to replace 13 million Firestone tires that have not been recalled. The replacement tire in question is also used as original equipment on Ford F-150 pickup trucks.

According to the committee staff, data it received from Continental indicated that for every one million tires sold, there were 124 claims about a defect. When Ford said in May that it was going to replace the Firestone Wilderness AT’s, it said they had a claims rate of 15 for each million.

The highway safety agency cautioned, however, that the simple claims rate does not establish the safety of a tire. A claim represents a demand by a customer for damages beyond the value of the tire itself.

Continental said in a statement that among the 2.7 million tires produced, there were only three accidents that caused injuries, not seven, ‘’and one lawsuit settled long ago.’’ The statement did not indicate whether the lawsuit was over one of the three; a spokeswoman did not return phone calls seeking comment.

Ford said in a statement that its testing indicated that the tire ‘’meets our performance and durability requirements,’’ but added, ‘’we have removed this tire from our approved tire replacement list until N.H.T.S.A. completes its investigation.’’ Ford is using as many as 60 different tires to replace the Firestones.

Ford has replaced about three million Firestones so far but has used only 4,300 of the tires under investigation, the company said. The tire in question is size P235/70R16.

The traffic safety agency also said that changes had been made since the tire was first manufactured, in 1995, that are likely to reduce the rate of tread separation.

A spokesman for the committee, Ken Johnson, said, however, that the modification of the Ameri*550 had been to remove rubber and make it lighter. Firestone modified its ATX tires in 1993-94 the same way, he said, and soon they started showing an increased rate of tread separations, which led to rollovers in the Explorers. The modifications, he said, were ‘’hauntingly similar.’’

Mr. Johnson pointed out that some of the recalled Firestones had produced damage claims but no injury claims.

The announcement today is a complication for Ford, which undertook the replacement at a cost of $2.1 billion after taxes, to rebuild trust in its vehicles. Continental said that most of the 2.7 million Ameri*550 AS tires it produced over the years had been for original equipment on Ford pickups. Ford has not said anything about whether it will replace those.

The announcement also represents a vindication for the committee chairman, Billy Tauzin, a Louisiana Republican, who said at a hearing a month ago that some of the replacement tires might be worse than the Firestones, but then refused to say which they were.

Mr. Tauzin said in a statement that, ‘’The agency’s decision to open a formal defect investigation into one of Ford’s replacement tires is a responsible and measured precaution, resulting from our ongoing Congressional investigation into tire safety.’’

In a reaction to the problem of Firestone tires shedding their treads, the highway safety agency will issue proposed rules on Thursday for systems that measure tire pressure and warn the driver if the pressure is too low.

Rae Tyson, a spokesman for the agency, said that it planned to publish two alternative rules for public comment. One would call for systems to alert the driver if pressure in a single tire fell too low; another would send an alert if pressure in several tires fell below a certain percentage of the optimum level. Under-inflated tires are more prone to shed their treads, and Congress made the warning systems a requirement last year in a law that also established new reporting requirements for tire companies that receive claims or complaints from customers.

The final rule on tire pressure monitors is due in November. Some cars in dealer showrooms already have such systems.

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