Somebody finally said it, Ford & Firestone

Car and Driver Magazine did a pretty extensive test and used a MacGyver system to rapidly deflate the tires and then see what the vehicle did. There was very little movement when the tire deflated and their idea was that if you did not panic and just drive straight and apply the brakes there was no vehicle instability at all. They were basically saying that people panicked and over-corrected by jerking the wheel etc. There is a Youtube or two showing their 'tv' production and the testing

 

Stop trying to confuse people with the facts. It hurts their feelings.

 

Yes I remember that but the 500 radial issue was a big deal too. What I heard was that the steel belting was found to be rusting during production, and as they say rust never sleeps and it would cause problems later in use.

 

That Ford Firestone relationship goes WAY back

Didn't the deuce marry the stone daughter ?

 

Two pages in and nobody wants to acknowledge this fiasco birthed those annoying TPM lights?

 

Yeah the first version of the TPM system kind of of sucked, but now the wife can look at the actual pressures then yell at me WTF my tires are getting low. So it's evolved very well and many HP cars will now tell you the psi and tire temps and if you can honk on it.

 

OMG back in those days affluent old school big money families tried to protect assets by arranging marriages to other big money families to prevent too much inner-breeding with the cousins. So yep the Fords and Firestones had arrangements.

 

Well maybe but some others might disagree...

 

Let me guess. They’re all personal injury lawyers.

 

Nope tire engineers

 

Oh, I remember that debacle well also. Saw plenty of my Dad's tires fail. Never understood his loyalty to Firestone, even though they did warrantee many of his tires.
I was lucky that I didn't experience a failure when I borrowed his '70's station wagon to tow race bikes to race the Road America WERA National 6 hour in 1982, with a bunch of my buddys. First race my now wife went to, also.

 

"Somebody finally said it, Ford & Firestone"

Who said it??

 

Decades ago we had a Jeep Liberty that needed tires and we listened to the jackwagon and put firestones on it because we needed tires.
Turned the car from an okay car to drive to a hot mess.

 

A journalist, see post 1?

 

There are people here that worked at Ford when this was going on…. Just say’n

 

I worked at a garage that was a Firestone dealer in the early 70's. We sold the bias ply tires, the snow tires ran pretty quiet. The radials were a nightmare, they almost all came back. After that, anybody who insisted on having radial tires we sent down the street to our buddy who sold Michelins.
When I worked at Cadillac, the dealership owner had a thing for a soft ride. He'd have the tire pressures for a Fleetwood Brougham set to like 18 pounds. I would set them at official spec (A compromise between his spec and jacking it up to 32 pounds.) and he would still complain. He took a Corvette in trade once and he claimed he could feel the car running over cigarette butts.

 

And I worked at Ford when the 500 radial crap was going on. So what's your point and are these other Ford people vehicle or chassis engineers? Otherwise it doesn't really matter

 

Ah, Firestone. Was 17 when I started working at my local Firestone after school, and all day on Saturday. Learned a lot from the old mechanic there, maybe 35 years old. Regaled me with stories of banging his wife’s younger sister who lived with them. Taught me use the Coats tire machine, the Hunter tire on vehicle balancing machine. Learned with another machine how to shave tires. Those retreads we sold usually needed a touch up, Lol. Good old days…