Firestone tires these days?

[Pacfanweb]

That pressure was to improve the RIDE. Lower pressure would not improve handling or stability.

Ford investigated and found that they did have a higher rate of failure from Firestones, nearly all from the Decatur plant. This was done AFTER the govt. contacted Ford and Firestone about the problem. Whether Ford realized there was a real problem or not, is hard to say.

The rollover incidents have ceased since the recall, which proved that the tires themselves, not the Explorers, were at fault. Well, that, and owner lack of responsibility and driving ability.

I would agree that both companies got what they deserved if they knew about this beforehand. That recall sure was hell to live through for the dealerships, though. You wouldn't believe all the people that were all of a sudden afraid of their tires they had been driving on for years without a problem.

 

[Nessism]

Originally posted by: Pacfanweb
That pressure was to improve the RIDE. Lower pressure would not improve handling or stability.

Ford investigated and found that they did have a higher rate of failure from Firestones, nearly all from the Decatur plant. This was done AFTER the govt. contacted Ford and Firestone about the problem. Whether Ford realized there was a real problem or not, is hard to say.

The rollover incidents have ceased since the recall, which proved that the tires themselves, not the Explorers, were at fault. Well, that, and owner lack of responsibility and driving ability.

I would agree that both companies got what they deserved if they knew about this beforehand. That recall sure was hell to live through for the dealerships, though. You wouldn't believe all the people that were all of a sudden afraid of their tires they had been driving on for years without a problem.

The pressure was not to improve the ride. Testing at Ford before the vehicle was ever released showed a tendency toward rollover, problem was the tooling was already set and it would have cost a bunch of money to redesign the vehicle. To mitigate the roll over risk, Ford found by reducing the tire pressure the rollover tendency was improved. Firestone protested about the low tire pressure specification but agreed in the end to get the contract. The Goodyear tires also spec'ed for the Explorer tolerated these low pressures better, even when consumers predictably ran the tires at even lower pressures.

Rollover in a vehicle typically occurs during sudden handling situations - such as swerving. Drivers do not swerve on purpose, events such as blown tires lead to this. Blaming bad driving is not a reasonable excuse.

As far as Ford not knowing what is going on, this is inexcusable. Ford has a very detailed field warranty analysis system and I'm 100% positive that their system showed that they had an abnormally high incident rate of tire problems on the Explorer. Tires are typically one of the higher warranty items anyway, along with batteries, so some manufactures, don't investigate as closely as they should considering Firestone pays the warranty cost for the claims. My supposition is that Ford knew there was a problem with the tires but dismissed it since Firestone was paying the warranty. It wasn't until there was a lot of water under the bridge so to speak before they investigated to the point where the tires were flagged as a contributor to the rollover issue.

There were lots of mistakes made in this whole situation, and both Ford and Firestone are to blame. I don?t hate either company but clearly their concern for making money led them to make these bad decisions.

 

[Pacfanweb]

If Explorers needed 26psi to keep from rolling over, then why did Ford change the spec to a higher psi during the recall? And now they rollovers have essentially stopped, even though people know to run a higher pressure.

 

[Nessism]

Originally posted by: Pacfanweb
If Explorers needed 26psi to keep from rolling over, then why did Ford change the spec to a higher psi during the recall? And now they rollovers have essentially stopped, even though people know to run a higher pressure.

When the tires run low on air the internal friction increases which adds heat. The heat caused the tires to fail ? the design of the Wilderness AT could not tolerate the heat and/or there were quality issues with the manufacture.

By telling customers to increase the tire pressure Ford was taking the lesser of two evils; the rollover tendency of the vehicle running a higher tire pressure was far lower than the rollover tendency if a tire blows.

 

[zoiks]

Originally posted by: sniperruff

Originally posted by: mrSHEiK124
I've got Firestone Firehawk Wide Ovals, and I love them. Very similar tires to the Bridgestone Potenza RE750s, and probably made in the same factory, at a lower price.

I had a pair of Bridgestone Turanza EL400 tires before this one, and I hated them. They only lasted 20k miles before they started making more road noise than I can hear now with a cat-back exhaust, and I got sick of them at 25k. These pieces of shit come stock on a bunch of cars too, Camry, Altima SE, Scion tC, and a few others. Stay faaaaaaaaar far away.

my 05' altima SE comes with the turenza EL42... i'd say road noise is ok, but my rear tires lasted 55k miles... 55000 miles! i just swapped them out with a set of 4 falken ze912's 2 weeks ago.

My G35 had the Turanza EL42 as well. They were half gone at 44k which is when I sold the car.

 

[Pacfanweb]

Originally posted by: Nessism

Originally posted by: Pacfanweb
If Explorers needed 26psi to keep from rolling over, then why did Ford change the spec to a higher psi during the recall? And now they rollovers have essentially stopped, even though people know to run a higher pressure.

When the tires run low on air the internal friction increases which adds heat. The heat caused the tires to fail ? the design of the Wilderness AT could not tolerate the heat and/or there were quality issues with the manufacture.

By telling customers to increase the tire pressure Ford was taking the lesser of two evils; the rollover tendency of the vehicle running a higher tire pressure was far lower than the rollover tendency if a tire blows.

But when they were increasing the air pressure recommendations, they were doing so while replacing the Firestones with a different brand that wouldn't fail at 26psi......so why even bother?
We used nearly everything during the recall...several kinds of Goodyears, Uniroyals (even their Nailguards), Michelin, etc. None of those had a problem at the lower pressures, so why even change the pressure recommendation if you weren't going to have the tires that were affected by low pressure?

 

[JulesMaximus]

Originally posted by: Nessism

Originally posted by: Pacfanweb
That pressure was to improve the RIDE. Lower pressure would not improve handling or stability.

Ford investigated and found that they did have a higher rate of failure from Firestones, nearly all from the Decatur plant. This was done AFTER the govt. contacted Ford and Firestone about the problem. Whether Ford realized there was a real problem or not, is hard to say.

The rollover incidents have ceased since the recall, which proved that the tires themselves, not the Explorers, were at fault. Well, that, and owner lack of responsibility and driving ability.

I would agree that both companies got what they deserved if they knew about this beforehand. That recall sure was hell to live through for the dealerships, though. You wouldn't believe all the people that were all of a sudden afraid of their tires they had been driving on for years without a problem.

The pressure was not to improve the ride. Testing at Ford before the vehicle was ever released showed a tendency toward rollover, problem was the tooling was already set and it would have cost a bunch of money to redesign the vehicle. To mitigate the roll over risk, Ford found by reducing the tire pressure the rollover tendency was improved. Firestone protested about the low tire pressure specification but agreed in the end to get the contract. The Goodyear tires also spec'ed for the Explorer tolerated these low pressures better, even when consumers predictably ran the tires at even lower pressures.

Rollover in a vehicle typically occurs during sudden handling situations - such as swerving. Drivers do not swerve on purpose, events such as blown tires lead to this. Blaming bad driving is not a reasonable excuse.

As far as Ford not knowing what is going on, this is inexcusable. Ford has a very detailed field warranty analysis system and I'm 100% positive that their system showed that they had an abnormally high incident rate of tire problems on the Explorer. Tires are typically one of the higher warranty items anyway, along with batteries, so some manufactures, don't investigate as closely as they should considering Firestone pays the warranty cost for the claims. My supposition is that Ford knew there was a problem with the tires but dismissed it since Firestone was paying the warranty. It wasn't until there was a lot of water under the bridge so to speak before they investigated to the point where the tires were flagged as a contributor to the rollover issue.

There were lots of mistakes made in this whole situation, and both Ford and Firestone are to blame. I don?t hate either company but clearly their concern for making money led them to make these bad decisions.

And the suckers who bought these ridiculous vehicles paid the price on the road. Lemmings...

 

[Nessism]

Originally posted by: Pacfanweb

Originally posted by: Nessism

Originally posted by: Pacfanweb
If Explorers needed 26psi to keep from rolling over, then why did Ford change the spec to a higher psi during the recall? And now they rollovers have essentially stopped, even though people know to run a higher pressure.

When the tires run low on air the internal friction increases which adds heat. The heat caused the tires to fail ? the design of the Wilderness AT could not tolerate the heat and/or there were quality issues with the manufacture.

By telling customers to increase the tire pressure Ford was taking the lesser of two evils; the rollover tendency of the vehicle running a higher tire pressure was far lower than the rollover tendency if a tire blows.

But when they were increasing the air pressure recommendations, they were doing so while replacing the Firestones with a different brand that wouldn't fail at 26psi......so why even bother?
We used nearly everything during the recall...several kinds of Goodyears, Uniroyals (even their Nailguards), Michelin, etc. None of those had a problem at the lower pressures, so why even change the pressure recommendation if you weren't going to have the tires that were affected by low pressure?

As you know, tires don?t like running low on air - 26 psi is quite low for a modern tire, particularly when it?s clearly understood that customers will allow the pressure to drop even lower before they add air. At the time of the recall Ford was in need of huge numbers of tires thus they allowed a wide variety of different tires to qualify for recall payment. No tire manufacturer wants their tires running around with low pressures like this, particularly after seeing what had happened to Firestone, thus the dealers and Ford had no choice but to put the tire manufactures recommended air fill in the tires. The vehicle dynamics guys at Ford might not have liked this situation but clearly it?s the lesser of two evils.