Ford Explorer Report Under Attack

A newspaper report that said Ford Explorers have a higher rate of tire-related accidents than other sport utility vehicles is being criticized by company officials and vehicle safety experts as flawed.

Ford has blamed Firestone tires for any increase in Explorer accidents, and 6.5 million Firestones have been recalled after they were linked to 101 deaths and hundreds of injuries.

The tires were standard on many Explorers. But experts said a Washington Post analysis printed Monday suggested the Explorer itself may play a role in accidents, even when other tires are involved.

The analysis gives "an indication that there may be a factor with the Ford Explorer beyond the tire issue," said James Fell, a former research chief for the National Highway and Traffic Safety Administration. "It's a first indicator that they may have a stability problem."

But David Champion, director of the Consumer Reports magazine auto testing facility, refuted the claim that the Explorer has had more problems than other SUVs.

He said tests conducted by Consumer Reports have found no significant differences in the rate of rollovers of Explorers compared to similar sport utility models by other car companies.

"If nothing fails - and you know, we test for the car in its optimum condition - then the Explorer handles pretty well," Champion said Tuesday on CBS' The Early Show. "It's relatively nimble. It doesn't seem to have any tendency to tip in our accident avoidance course and it's been relatively a stable vehicle."

The newspaper on Monday defended its story and its analysis, and said that auto industry experts had verified the study.

"In our story (Monday) we have several experts quoted as saying that the methodology we used was valid. We stand behind that," said Jill Dutt, assistant managing editor for business news. "The results of our analysis raise questions that experts say bear further investigation."

The Post looked at fatal crashes nationally from 1997 to 1999 and at fatal and nonfatal crashes in Florida during the same period.

Champion said reviewing Explorer accidents and complaints of the most recent years does not fairly reflect the history of the vehicle and the owners who drive them.

"The vehicle has been out for 10 years. I think if it was a design problem, we would have seen more accidents earlier on," Champion said.

Champion said families - the top new car purchasers of Explorers in its first few years of production - tended to maintain the SUV better than the second- or third-hand owners.

"The upkeep and tire pressures may not be as good" by later owners, he said, "They may be driven by people that don't drive quite as calmly as the housewives do."

The newspaper's analysis of 2,000 fatal accidents involving SUVs nationwide concluded that Explorers with Goodyear tires had a higher rat of tire-related accidents than did other SUVs. It could be a statistical fluke because the database was so small, the Post said.

The analysis also included Florida data covering 25,000 fatal and nonfatal SUV accidents in which there were 83 blown tires.

"Tire blowouts in Goodyear-equipped Explorers contributed to crashes at rates more than double those of other SUVs," the newspaper reported.

The paper also found that in Florida for the model years 1995 to 1997, the Explorer was 13 percent more likely to roll than other compact SUVs, and was 53 percent more likely than other compact SUVs to roll over when an equipment failure such as faulty brakes, bald tires or blowouts caused an accident.

Spokesmen for Ford and the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. said the analysis was faulty because the number of accidents examined was too small to be meaningful, accident databases don't always accurately identify vehicles and Explorers shouldn't be compared to the full range of SUVs.

Ford spokesman Jon Harmon said the Explorer was safer than its competitors in all accidents, including rollovers. Harmon said he had no explanation for why the Post's analysis found Explorers rolling over more often in accidents than other compact SUVs.

"Any way we looked at it (the data), the Explorer's safety record has shone through," he said.

Goodyear spokesman Chuck Sinclair said the figures the Post used from Florida were questionable, because there were no specifics on how the tires failed.

Sinclair said the company had no reports of accidents, injuries, rollovers or fatalities, and no damage claims or lawsuits, from Ford Explorers with Goodyears in Florida.

© 2000 CBS Worldwide Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report