Author Topic: Ford Explorer and Firestone Tires (Read 867 times)

Sheila · « **on:** February 13, 2004, 09:04:05 AM »

What was the real story with accidents involved with Firestone Tires and Ford explores? I mean if you are driving to fast, your tires are going to shred. I think they should slap the blame on the consumers. I know some people that have Firestone tires on their Chevy Blazers, and they don't seem to have any problems. People are getting greedy anymore.

Redhawk1 · « **Reply #1 on:** February 13, 2004, 10:55:15 AM »

I think a lot if it had to do with the air pressure. People driving on to low of air pressure. I never had a problem with Firestone tires.

SquirrelSniper · « **Reply #2 on:** February 13, 2004, 01:13:55 PM »

What he said. It was far easier for FORD to spend the blame on Firestone than accept responsibility. The lower air pressure was suggested for ride comfort.

DirtyHarry · « **Reply #3 on:** February 13, 2004, 05:25:54 PM »

Chevy and Dodge used the exact same tires and never had a tread seperation problem like ford.I wonder why after all the tire problems ford decided to completely revamp the rear-ends in the explorers from live axle to independant suspention? Smells kinda fishy to me :roll:

KN · « **Reply #4 on:** February 13, 2004, 07:57:51 PM »

Independant suspension was in the works several years before the tire incedent happened. (I work for ford). From what I have read and heard about the tire problems, Low inflation was a factor in the tire seperations, BUT, every documented case of failier that resulted in a crash was determined to be a high speed incedent. Low preasure + high speed = Hot tires. Were the tires crap? Probably. Most of the susspect tires were manufactured at a time when Firestone was on strike. They were using Scab untrained labor to manufactur them. Was ford partially to blame for the problems? Thats still a matter of opinion. (And still tied up in court). Ford did go to a lot of expense to rectify a problem that they really didn't feel was their fault. ( I.E. there goes my profit sharing.) Yes they did it to keep market share, but they still did it. I didn't see GM or Dodge replacing any of the Firestone tires they were puting on. Of course they didn't have any where near the volume of those particular tires like Ford did. The shear number of Explorers that were sold with them is staggering. KN

DirtyHarry · « **Reply #5 on:** February 13, 2004, 09:10:49 PM »

The one point about this topic that nobody has been able to satisfy is why only ford explorers? I know ford couldnt have had more explorers with firestone tires on the road than all other automakers combined.
I will say that no other suv on the market can compare to the ride of the explorers with IRS. The in-laws are blue oval fans and have had 4 explorers, two with the live axle and two with the IRS,and the last generation explorer was like riding on a hay wagon, this generation is like riding in a caddy :grin:

KN · « **Reply #6 on:** February 14, 2004, 11:03:58 AM »

Some of the older exporers were prone to easy rollovers any way. And yes in the tire size used by the explorers Ford was about the only one using them. You still see them on pickups and a few other vehichles but the ones that had all the trouble were almost exclusively used on explorers. Some people were probably putting them on other vehichles as relacements but There weren't many other vehichles out there that used them. Ford was contracting such a large volume of them I doubt that Firestone could have supplied a much larger market. KN