Every attempt to research this in order to come up with something more conclusive leads me to believe that there is possibly other factors to explain it: bad publicity (once Ford bailed and tried to blame it all on Firestone) and hysteria.
I think this because of the number of complaints I can find about other brands of tires as well. Some models have higher failure rates than the one model from Decatur, but the problem with the Firestone model would appear to be the huge numbers of the model in use over a considerable stretch of time (tires wear out from wear to the tread, but the materials also decay after 5 years). What's clear from my limited research:
1. Ford under-spec'ed (cheaped out on) the choice of tires and then went with low inflation rates (why? some say it was to help prevent roll overs). This would help explain why Ford was at war with Firestone while GM called them the supplier of the year. (Apparently Ford and Firestone are trying to 'patch' things up, since Ford appears to be in worse shape than Bridgestone-Firestone now).
2. A lot of people are driving sports utility vehicles with higher centers of gravity, but they drive them as if they were sports cars or something. I remember in the Army how many accidents the jeeps were in accidents because of the roll over phenomenon. Getting on and off interstates in convoys were often the situation where the rollover would happen because the drivers didn't slow down to make the turns.
3. The US has a real tire problem. Let me explain. I remember two years ago driving down one of those long, straight stretches of piney woods parkways you get on the east coast (it was South Carolina this time) and every so many miles I would see an abandoned late model car. My brother noticed, too. What we figured out was this: most of the vehicles were on the side of the road because of blowouts. Or to be more explanatory, it seems quite a few Americans get in a car and drive it until it breaks down, with little or no maintenance. Tires are often the first to go.
It seems--so we theorize--that people only do one thing to keep their cars going, self service refills of fuel.
It is a complex of factors: people don't do tire maintenance anymore (because of the self-serve gas stations), people roll on tires and only replace them when they get so old they blow, and many don't notice how bad their tires are anymore because of lax inspection laws (South Carolina would seem to be very lax) and no full-service gas stands . It would seem SUV owners often combine overloading of their vehicles with insufficient tire maintenance. Another factor besides lack of maintenance would be the higher highway speeds nowadays.
Maybe the tires from one plant had higher rates of tread separations and blowouts, but then why specifically Explorers and why the roll overs. Sure, the lawyers and courts will figure it out, but I doubt if much truth emerges.
I agree, though, that Firestone's labor relations may well have hurt them. That was a very bitter strike at the Decatur plant. Bridgestone got far more than it bargained for when it decided to take over Firestone. One good thing coming out of this is that tire and automobile companies will implement tire check programs. They can't afford not to given the high cost of liability that ALL manufacturers of tires now face. Something I suggested to several tire companies two years ago after seeing all the blowouts on South Carolina highways.
Charles Jannuzi