firestone recall

Now that some time has passed since the Firestone situation, I think it is interesting that you don't hear or read anything about Explorer rollovers.

As I recall, the Firestone company placed the blame on the Ford Explorer; Ford said the rollovers were due to Firestone tire failure. Now that the Firestone tires are have been removed, the press doesn't report any Explorer rollover accidents. Wonder who was to blame??

I think almost any SUV would roll if the tires failed at a high speed. And it seems that the Firestones failed at a much higher rate than most tires. It's too bad that the Explorer got a bad reputation from the negative press.

At first I regretted my decision to purchase a 2000 Limited, mostly because of the Firestone situation. However, it has been a pretty good car.

But I believe that both Ford and GM have to improve their quality to improve car sales in the US.

Reply to
stevie
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They also don't tell you how many of them were raised or had oversized tires on them. It's just the media. They go on about something for a while and then pick something else. Sometimes it's high-speed chases, sometimes freeway shootings, and sometimes Explorers rolling over. Just as long as they get you to watch the show. Since the Explorer is the best-selling SUV it's a good choice for stories.

Reply to
Ulysses

"Ulysses" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@corp.supernews.com:

Most of the stories seemed to disappear fairly quickly after people started pointing out to the media that the photos they were running on the front page under the headlines about the killer Firestones showed an unside-down Explorer wearing Goodyear shoes.

Look closely at the SUVs being driven today. Almost every other one has at least one seriously underinflated tire.

If you don't think an underinflated tire overheats and falls apart, then you probably still believe that those big chunks on the freeway are from "re-caps".

Reply to
Al Tsiemers

I had personal experience with defective Firestone tires on two Explorers, a '92 and a '99. In the early 90's this newsgroup was full of postings about problems with shaking. Various causes were identified, such as radius arm bushings. My '92 was about two years old when it started to have intermittent shaking problems. Around 55 the front end would begin to shake as if everything up there was loose. The Ford dealer blamed the tires, the tire dealer blamed the Ford. By this time, the shocks were ruined from all the shaking, so I installed Bilsteins. This did not solve the problem. Finally, I replaced the tires with another set of Firestones. Had the same problem. My Firestone dealer then replaced the tires with Michelin LTX M/S. The problem disappeared and stayed gone until I sold the vehicle last year. I now know the shaking was caused by the beginning of tread separation on the Firestones.

When I bought the '99, I had the Firestones replaced with Michelins before I took delivery. However, the spare was not replaced. After about three years, during which time the spare had never been on the road, I looked closely at it and saw that there were significant cracks all around the tire at the edge of the belt. This tire was beginning to fail and had never been run. Obviously, inflation was not a factor. I got a free Michelin to replace the spare when Ford decided to recall all Firestones. As I recall, Ford spent around $2 billion replacing these tires before Firestone recalled them.

The three biggest tire recalls >"Ulysses" wrote in

Reply to
Big Shoe

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