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U.S. probes more tire deaths
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September 19, 2000: 10:46 p.m. ET
Agency raises toll linked to Firestone tires to 103; injury toll reaches 400
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NEW YORK (CNNfn) - Federal transportation officials said Tuesday they are investigating an additional 15 deaths linked to the Firestone tire recall, bringing the total to 103 from 88.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration also said it has received 400 reports of injuries and more than 2,226 complaints about the tires. That compares with previous reports of about 250 injuries and 1,400 complaints, according to NHTSA data released Sept 1.
 The news comes just as the lawmaker leading a safety investigation into the tires said Tuesday that Firestone may have known about problems with tires made in its Decatur, Ill. plant as early as 1996, but did nothing to alert the public until years later.
Rep. Billy Tauzin, R-La., has formally requested Firestone internal audit documents relating to 1996 tire tests that indicate eight of the 19 tires randomly tested in high-speed exams failed. Seven of the eight failed tires came from the Decatur plant, Tauzin said.
Firestone spokeswoman Julia Sutherland said the tests uncovered another type of tire failure, not the tread separations, and that that failure had been repaired.
Sutherland said the problem uncovered was one that had not been occurring to drivers, and had only been discovered by the tests. She described it as a lower sidewall failure. She said the company would offer further details Thursday, when company officials are expected to testify on Capitol Hill.
Decatur plant under scrutiny
Tauzin also found that Firestone changed its manufacturing process at the plant in 1997, after which warranty claims on the tires dropped dramatically. He wants to know what exactly changed.
In a statement Tuesday, the manager of the Decatur plant said the company was reviewing its manufacturing processes there and at other plant locations.
On Aug. 9, Bridgestone/Firestone and Ford Motor Co. recalled 6.5 million ATX, ATXII and Wilderness AT tires primarily found as original equipment on Ford Explorers and other Ford and Toyota SUVs.
The tires have also been linked to 46 deaths on Ford vehicles in Venezuela.
The tires were recalled after several complaints were registered with NHTSA that the treads were separating from the rest of the tires on vehicles in motion, often resulting in rollovers and fatalities.
The updated figures come two days before a second round of Congressional hearings into the recall. On Thursday a joint House subcommittee chaired by Tauzin plans to grill executives of both companies about the tire testing procedures and inflation recommendations.
Both companies and the government are still trying to determine the cause of the tire failures.
Shares of Ford (F: Research, Estimates) closed down 25 cents to $25.75 Tuesday.
Inflation pressure has emerged as a key issue in the government's investigation after lawmakers questioned whether the tires were failing because they were improperly inflated. Ford recommended customers inflate their Explorer tires to 26 pounds per square inch (PSI), compared with the 30 PSI recommended by Firestone.
Last Friday, Ford delivered 16 boxes of documents to NHTSA detailing testing and inflation data.
"There is a tremendous amount of information that we're pouring through, everything from tire tests to rollover data going back 10 years," Tauzin spokesman Ken Johnson said.
At a Senate hearing on Sept. 12 in Washington, the Japanese tire maker said the design of Ford's Explorer may also be to blame for the tire failures, saying the vehicle's high center of gravity may make it more prone to rollovers during a blowout.
 Firestone declined to comment Tuesday on a fresh recall of 160,000 tires by rival German tire maker Continental Ag, for similar tread separation problems.
The 16-inch ContiTrac AS tires involved in Tuesday's recall are made by Continental's U.S. subsidiary General Tire, and come as original equipment on 1998 and some 1999 model Lincoln Navigators.
Jim Cain, a Lincoln spokesman, said Tuesday that the company would do whatever it takes to replace the recalled tires for consumers.
"We think we have good supplies of tires and we're going to take care of this," Cain said. "We're going to do the right thing and replace these tires. Continental and General Tire have done a great job for us, and analyzing the data, identifying the root cause and doing it very quickly, that's the kind of performance you expect to see in these situations."
Earlier this month, lawmakers quizzed Bridgestone/Firestone Chairman Masatoshi Ono and Ford Chief Executive Jac Nasser about what exactly they knew about the recall and when they knew it.
Lawmakers chastised the executives for a 1998 memo that appears to show Firestone tried to persuade Ford not to notify the U.S. authorities about a tire replacement program it was initiating in Saudi Arabia. 
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