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Red lights flashed in the Middle East and South America last summer when treads began to peel off Ford Explorers sold in Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. Ford initially blamed the problem on the tendency of some Saudi drivers to underinflate their tires to get better traction when driving across the desert. But that scarcely explained the rash of similar failures on the other side of the globe in desert-free Venezuela.
Ford grew increasingly alarmed last year when similar failures cropped up in the U.S. Southwest. Working through Arizona dealers, the company collected tires from 200 Explorer owners. Ford and Firestone then X-rayed and sliced up the tires but could identify no defect. In the meantime, Ford quietly recalled vehicles from Venezuelan and Persian Gulf markets and replaced 40,000 to 60,000 high-mileage Firestone tires with those made by Goodyear. "You would have thought that they [Firestone] would have got the message," says a Ford official, in a none too subtle hint that the tiremaker should have addressed its own problems.
Firestone decided on the recall last week after poring over accident reports with Ford and huddling with NHTSA officials. Gary Crigger, Firestone's executive vice president, phoned his bosses in Tokyo to advise them of the decision. That seemed to catch the Japanese company flat-footed, although it publicly took credit for the order. Just two weeks ago, Bridgestone chief executive Yoichiro Kaizaki forecast rising profits for the rest of 2000. But last week Bridgestone said the recall at Firestone--which accounted for some 40% of Bridgestone's $20.4 billion in 1999 revenues--could cost the Japanese company as much as $600 million this year.
Tokyo seemed hurt and disgusted by the recall affair. Bridgestone bought Firestone in 1988, a decade after the American firm nearly sank in the aftermath of another recall--a record 14.5 million tires in 1978. "We spent the past 10 years trying to rebuild the image of Firestone," says Kenichi Kitawaki, Bridgestone's p.r. manager. "Then this happened."
Both companies will now have to convince customers that the tire problems are limited to just a few models and that the Firestone name can still be trusted. But first they will have to contend with scenes of crumpled SUVs and shredded tires and with accident victims like Dr. Rene Brignoni, a Florida oral surgeon who survived an Explorer rollover with a broken nose and severe lacerations last April when, he alleges, the tread suddenly peeled away from a Firestone tire. Brignoni is suing Firestone, charging that the company behaved irresponsibly. Says he: "I feel very fortunate to be alive, and I feel extremely sorry for families who have lost relatives or have been seriously injured." For Firestone, overcoming the images of such tragedies will be no small challenge.
--Reported by Mike Eskenazi/New York, Julie Grace/Chicago Elisabeth Kauffman/Nashville, Tim Larimer/Tokyo and Joseph R. Szczesny/Detroit