Was the Bridgestone and Firestone tire recall necessary?

Dean S

No. Ford shuffled the blame off to Firestone. The tire specifications were marginal. Ford specified a too low tire pressure to maintain the required load capacity from the tire, so they overheated on the freeway. The Explorer was top heavy and narrow tracked, so it rolled easily.
Firestone tires were no worse than Goodyears.

PS: Peugeots have a great worldwide reputation as good tough cars. It was the Corvair from GM that was "unsafe at any speed", but they were more stable than the contemporary Thunderbird,and probably better than the Explorer.

Dan W

Was this about the SUV roll overs of a few years ago?
The tires were OK on other cars but Ford listed the recommended tire pressure @ 26 PSI for passenger comfort.

George A

In 1995 I bought a 93 Ford Explorer Sport & ran the ATX II Firestone tire & never had a bit of trouble. I was also working as a long haul trucker, so I was well aware of the consequences of under inflated/over loaded. Any brand of tire, regardless of the $$ will separate when ran under inflated and over loaded. Ford wanted a car like ride in a truck & the tire manufacturer took the rap. This could have happened to any tire company. Firestone got hit the hardest since 90%+ of Ford's SUV's in the early '90's used Firestone tires. If Goodyear or Cooper was the predominant brand back then, it would be Goodyear or Cooper getting the bad rap now.

CwboyBill

Firestone makes the sorriest tire on the planet. How many recalls and how many blowouts and how many tread separations will it take before the buying public STOPS buying these unsafe tires. Remember the Firestone 500's? Thousands of these junk tires fell apart before threats of a class action lawsuit forced Firestone to replace the faulty units back in the '70's. Remember the Firestone Wilderness? Again, thousands of these miserable tires suffered tread separation which caused roll-overs and collisions galore before the feds put a stop to them in the '90's. To the person that seems to think Ford Motor company is at fault -- wake up. Ford isn't in the business of designing tires for God's sake! Even if they were does that give Firestone a pass to build unsafe tires? Firestone is the Peugeot of the tire industry -- unsafe at any speed.

nikki g

yes-it's not Bridgestone and Firestone's fault. It was Ford! Ford has design specifications for tires that they want a price on from multiple tire companies and whoever can build them the cheapest gets the bid. And apparently Ford's design wasn't quite up to par. So crappy design, crappy tires.

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