Total Recall

Firestone rolls them back

"The company had known for some time that these tires are a severe problem, with manydefective failures," Thunder Joan Claybrook, chief of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Last week, after months of angry negotiations, NHTSA pressed an agreement out of Firestone to recall its old 500 model steel-belted radials, which had experienced an unusual number of tread separations and blowouts.

The company will be obliged to recall as many as 7.5 million of the tires, primarily those produced between March 1975 and May 1976. In addition to the 500s, the recall includes similar tires sold as original equipment on General Motors cars and those marketed under other brand names, notably Montgomery Ward's Grappler 8000 and Super Shell Steel Radial. Firestone will have to replace them with its new and presumably improved 721 radials. It has also agreed to offer 50% discounts on the new tires to anybody who trades in a Firestone 500 model that was produced before March 1975.

This will add up to the largest tire recall in history, and the company estimates that it will cost up to $230 million -- or twice as much as last year's earnings. That may be an inflated estimate, but in any case, Firestone will be able to deduct the expense from its income taxes.

The agreement capped a classic corporate public relations fiasco for Firestone -- and a number of personal tragedies for others. Complaints on the 500s started rolling in several years ago. In July the NHTSA recommended that Firestone recall all the 500s still on the road. The company, which had continued producing some of the tires until early this year, refused. Recent information released by NHTSA suggested that 41 deaths and 65 injuries were connected with 500-series tire failures. While the evidence seemed conclusive, Firestone argued all along that no specific defects in the tire had ever been proved.

Now, according to the agreement, Firestone will have less than 60 days to begin notifying owners by mail, television, radio and print. Claybrook says that NHTSA will keep a close watch on the notification campaign: "We will not leave it up to Firestone to determine the amount or the content of the advertising." Amid all else, Firestone is worried about reports that some people have begun rummaging through dumps in search of 500s that could conceivably be turned in for new 721s. The company alerted dealers to start asking questions if someone wheels in with a whole truckload of 500s. -

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