Firestone Tire Recall

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Firestone Tire Recall

A judge has just approved a $149 million settlement of 30 class action lawsuits that were filed after the 2000 Firestone tire recall. There were 14.4 million Firestone tires involved in the recall. The settlement included the Firestone ATX, ATX II, and Wilderness AT tires that were investigated by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in 2000. There were at least 271 U.S. traffic deaths linked to the Firestone tire recall. Most of the recalled tires were sold with the Ford Explorer.

Terms of the settlement calls for Firestone to pay roughly $70 million to replace the recalled tires, $41 million to manufacture certain tires with materials that would provide a better high speed capacity, $15.5 million on a consumer education and awareness campaign, and $19 million for attorney''s fees. The Firestone tire recall includes 22 brands of Bridgestone/Firestone tires between 1991 and 2001. Since the settlement could affect an estimated 15 million drivers, involving about 60 million tires, those not named in the settlement will qualify to have them replaced.

The Firestone tire recall settlement is not fair and reasonable, according to lawyers and the over 100 objectors that had contested it. It was the Wilderness tires that led to the massive Firestone tire recall, a deadly episode that was the result of a Ford/Firestone cover-up according to Public Citizen, and the terms of the settlement was not to the approval of many. Such a significant controversy, the Firestone tire recall forced regulators to examine auto safety laws.

Now, years after the Firestone tire recall of 2000, the company was just starting to recover when a new Firestone tire recall was issued, subjecting itself to the possibility of a new lawsuit. Though a much smaller Firestone tire recall, the accidents have still involved fatalities. The Steeltex tire series involved in the Firestone tire recall were made between March 1999 and December 2002. A provision of a federal auto safety law that was passed shortly after the Firestone tire recall debacle of 2000 requires manufacturers to submit volumes of additional information about their products to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) officials.

NHTSA officials first became aware of the Firestone accidents in December 2003. The Steeltex Firestone tire recall models are found on Ford Excursions. There were about 300,000 Firestone tire recall models believed to still be in use around the time of the announcement. Attention from another lawsuit, should a certification of a national class action lawsuit be granted, would no doubt be another blow to the Bridgestone/Firestone name. If the class action lawsuit is granted for the Firestone tire recall, it has the potential to become the largest class action lawsuit ever.

The Public Citizen issued its own report on why the Ford Firestone tragedy occurred in the first place, finding the Firestone tire recall to be "the result of a long series of cost- and weight- saving miscalculations and gambles by Ford." The report was made in April 2001, after the consumer group failed to observe any adequate safety measures taken by the company, calling their actions "only false reassurances and partial explanations."

Related Resources

Tire Failure And Recall Information - Crashworthiness Resource for consumers with the intentions of alerting and educating people of the numerous auto defects proliferated by major car manufacturers.

Tire Recalls Prompt Lawsuits - Ford Continental general tire recall and tread separation information.

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