Ford May Ask Firestone To Help Pay For Recall Of 13 Million Tires

    NEW YORK, May 26 Newsweek has learned the Ford may ask
Firestone to help foot the $3 billion cost of a tire recall Ford announced
last week to replace all 13 million Firestone Wilderness AT tires on its
Explorer and Expedition SUVs and its F-150 Ranger pickups.  Ford claims it has
new evidence to show there are more problems with the tires, but Firestone
dismisses the recall as a "fruitless exercise," Newsweek reports in the June
4 issue (on newsstands Monday, May 28).
    
    Sources on Capitol Hill tell Newsweek that Ford CEO Jacques Nasser is
considering asking Firestone to help pay for the cost of the latest recall and
floated the notion to several Congressmen.  A Ford spokesman said
reimbursement by Firestone "is not on our agenda at this time."  But Nasser
sent a letter to his counterpart at Firestone, John Lampe, last Tuesday,
asking that the companies "work cooperatively" on the recall, report Detroit
Bureau Chief Keith Naughton and Investigative Correspondent Mark Hosenball.
But Lampe dismissed the recall saying:  "Why replace good tires with good
tires?"

    And Congressional sources tell Newsweek that Ford's current recall is not
justified, according to preliminary findings from a year-long federal probe
into Firestone tires.  They say the evidence of tire flaws provided to federal
investigators by Ford and Firestone is not serious enough to trigger a
government-ordered recall.
    More than 700 injuries and 174 deaths have now been linked to Firestone
tires shedding their tread at high speeds, mainly while mounted on Ford
Explorers, America's top selling sport-utility vehicle.  Last summer the two
companies jointly initiated a recall of 6.5 million tires that had been
implicated in the rollovers.  Ford is facing hundreds of wrongful death
lawsuits, including a huge federal class-action suit.  By initiating the
latest recall, lawyers say Ford is hoping to impress future juries and head
off hundreds of millions of dollars in punitive damages in court.

    The stakes are also high for Firestone.  Some plaintiff lawyers say the
tire company has been urging settlements by warning that its U.S. operations
could go bankrupt.  A Firestone spokeswoman countered that "the company has a
sound financial base that's sufficient to weather the current situation."

    Firestone executives are also trying to attack the motives of Ford, until
now its largest customer.  "They are trying to divert attention away from the
Explorer and trying to convince people this is only a tire issue," Lampe says.
"Rollovers are a vehicle issue, and that's got to be addressed."