A story developed and escalated to monstrous perportion about the exploding Pinto . The stories were very misleading . One main story that started off this myth was a law suit in which Ford was assessed to pay somewhere in the area of 21 million dollars . The media coverage was of monstrous proportion ! How ever there was an appeal filed after test results , in which Ford was cleared . This appeal got almost no coverage at all by the media . The Ford Foundation was said to have given money to pay for medical and financial support in this mater . There was no media coverage of this at all On crash tests the no explosions resulted . It is believed , and most probable with any automobile involved in a rear end collision that the cause of a fuel fire would be the ignition of spilled fuel by an external source ? In the case of the Ford Pinto , Ford found that if the vehicle were hit very hard and from the proper angle , there was a slight possibility that the fuel tank could be separated from the fuel filler neck . The filler neck was mounted behind the license plate bracket pointing straight to the rear . In a straight on hit the filler would have moved into the tank , so only an angle hit could cause it the separate from the tank . Ford recalled all Pinto’s and a longer filler neck was installed along with some other modified parts , to prevent this problem .
The following year the Pinto line was discontinued as previously planed by Ford . The last Pinto model year the sales were the best (150 % over best previous years) ever as most people who owned the loved them . Pinto was a light weight economy car that used the same transmission and differential as much bigger and heavier models . They were a very durable and dependable vehicle , and economical to drive .
Wilderness Firestone tires were said to be defective and were coming apart causing the Ford Explorer’s they came on to run off the road and be involver in accidents . The story behind this was that some Government department , decided that the riding height of the Explorer was higher than regulation . It was said that if the tire pressure were lowered to 26 psi , the riding height would come down to a level that would meet these spec’s .
Any tire that is under inflated will make the vehicle very hard to control . This is just common sense and something all drivers should know ! Most good Mechanics knew enough to set the tire pressure of these tires to 35 psi . The main problem with this situation was the drivers . Too many people who switched to driving SUV’s do not realize that you can not drive the SUV’s the same as you drive a car . Any vehicle that has a high ground clearance must be driven at lower speeds than a car , on curves or around corners etc . The higher vehicle will sway more on turns and also can tip much easier than a car . Any article that is high and narrow can be tipped over , much easier than objects that are lower and (or) wider . As far as a blown tire is concerned , if a driver looses control of a vehicle because of a tire failure , it is normally the inability of the driver that causes the accident , not the tire . Flat tires are a part of life . Vehicles should be driven at safe speeds and at speeds that suit the driving conditions .
In the case of the wilderness tires , Ford Motor Company recalled all the tires , in the best interest of their customers , even though their may not have been any real safety issue with the tires . The replacement tires were set to the tire manufactures recommended pressures (35 psi) . It was said the annual bonuses of some top 125 or so , executives of Ford were cancelled to help pay for the staggering cost of this recall .
Almost every major tire manufacturer in the world has had real major issues with tires they have made , at one time or other . In most cases these issues have been kept to a minimum of publicity .
