June 3, 2001
A federal judge is being asked to order the recall of all four million Ford Explorers manufactured from 1990 through 2001. The filing in Indianapolis U.S. District Court contends the popular sports utility vehicle is unsafe and cannot be fixed. It asks that Ford either give owners a refund or a replacement vehicle.
A few days earlier, Bridgestone/Firestone formally asked the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to investigate the Explorer. The company cited a study by an Ohio State University professor who found that the Explorer tends to "oversteer" after a tire tread separation.
There have been at least 174 U.S. traffic deaths and 700 injuries involving rollovers on Explorers equipped with Firestone ATX, ATX II and Wilderness AT tires. Ford and Firestone have become increasingly aggressive in blaming each other for the series of accidents.
In the Indianapolis filing before U.S. District Judge Sarah Evans Barker, attorney Irwin Levin said the Explorers are "inherently unsafe and present an immediate and continuing danger to their owners, their occupants and to the American motoring public."
"No engineering solution exists which would render the Explorers reasonably safe for operation in the manner in which Ford markets its Explorers to the public, that is, as family passenger vehicles," Levin said.
A Ford spokesman called the filing "frivolous." Levin said the litigation involves more than 200 cases of people who were either killed or injured in Explorers equipped with Firestone tires.
"We filed this because we're very concerned about the safety of these vehicles," Levin told the Detroit Free Press. "Ford and Firestone have chosen to point their guns at each other, and now they're confirming what we thought all along -- that there are problems with both the tires and the Explorer."
Last week Ford announced it would replace all 13 million Firestone Wilderness AT tires on its vehicles and Firestone announced it was severing its business relationship with Ford.
Congressional hearings are scheduled for the week of June 18 before the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
