----- Original Message ----- From: "Ken Waller" Subject: Re: Ford claims ownership of images
>> > How about operators not understanding that vehicles like the Explorer are > not like other vehicles. The high ground clearance is there for a reason & > it produces operating characheristice different than the common car. I don't think it reasonable to expect yer average soccer mom to deal well with a blow out at 75mph in an inherently unstable vehicle. They just don't teach this in driver ed. In the Explorer situation, Ford apparently went against the tire manufacturers recommendations regarding minimum inflation pressure, the result being that a vehicle at speed was running on dangerously hot tires which would, at some point, delaminate and fail. Everything I've read about this from unbiased parties indicates that the Firestone tires (ATX, ATX II, and Wilderness AT) that were used on the explorers were perfectly safe, provided they were inflated to the tire manufacturers recommended pressure of 35 pounds, and didn't fall below Firestones recommended minimum pressure of 30 pounds. Unfortunately, the Exlporer running hard tires was, from what I have read, quite prone to tipping, hence the recommnendation from Ford to run the tires soft. Most people outside of Ford and their PR departments place blame fairly equally on both Ford and Firestone Ford should not have used those tires on the Explorer if they were insisting on tire pressures nearly 30% lower than what the tire maker was recommending. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firestone_and_Ford_tire_controversy "Ford internal documents show the company engineers recommended changes to the vehicle design after it rolled over in company tests prior to introduction, but other than a few minor changes, the suspension and track width were not changed. Instead, Ford, which sets the specifications for the manufacture of its tires, decided to remove air from the tires, lowering the recommended psi to 26. The Firestone-recommended psi molded into the tire for maximum load is 35psi." and "Goodyear tires to the same specification have a spotless safety record when installed on the Explorer, although an extra liner was included into the Goodyear design after recommendations to that effect were made to Ford." It sounds like Goodyear didn't want to get into the same mess that Ford put Firestone into. William Robb -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
