Myths & Facts About the Explorer

Myth: SUVs are unsafe because they roll over. SUV owners would be better off driving cars.

Fact: That's false. Advances in safety technology have made all types of passenger vehicles safer than the vehicles on the road a generation ago. And Ford's analysis of federal and state government safety data shows that, overall, SUVs are even safer than passenger cars. That's because SUVs are involved in fewer accidents - SUV drivers often have better lines of sight and SUVs are more visible to other drivers. Also, SUV occupants are often better protected when they are involved in collisions.

Although SUVs are involved in more rollover crashes than passenger cars, there is a greater risk of fatality in a passenger car in frontal, side and rear impacts. As a result, SUVs are safer overall.

SUVs do handle differently. That is a key reason that the different handling characteristics are printed on a label appearing on the visor of every SUV all automakers build.

Leading edge safety technology available later this year on the 2002 Ford Explorer - including AdvanceTracTM electronic stability control and Ford's new Safety CanopyTM - will further reduce the risk of a rollover and serious injury or death if a rollover accident occurs. But a buckled safety belt is still the best and primary line of defense for any adult occupant in a serious accident. Children should of course be in the proper restraint system (child seat, booster seat, etc.) until they are large enough to use adult safety belts.

Fact: Not true. Ford's analysis of safety data from the U.S. Department of Transportation confirms that over the past 10 years Explorer consistently ranks among the safest vehicles in its class. The fatality rate for passenger cars is 1.5 per 100 million miles of vehicle travel. The rate for compact SUVs is lower - 1.3. And the Explorer is even lower at 1.1.

Focusing on rollover accidents alone, the Explorer is safer than competitive SUVs. Ford analysis of government safety data reveals that the Explorer line is involved in 19 percent fewer fatal rollovers than other similar SUVs. And, state safety data, which covers fatal and non-fatal rollovers, show that Explorers are involved in 16 percent fewer rollovers than competitive SUVs.

Fact: Not true. Ford Motor Company is replacing these tires because its number one priority is to ensure the safety of our customers and their families. Ford's concern is the Wilderness AT tire. The facts are as follows:

First, Ford fitted both Firestone tires and Goodyear tires on Explorers beginning in 1995 and through the 1997 model year. And the difference in performance is dramatic. For the roughly 3 million Firestone tires equipped on about 500,000 Explorers, Firestone's own claims database shows that there have been 1,183 claims of tread separation. For the 3 million Goodyear tires on another 500,000 Explorers (that have traveled more than 25 billion miles), there have been only two minor claims of tread separation according to claims information supplied by Goodyear. The performance on the Firestone AT tires on Explorer is 600 times worse than Goodyear tires on Explorer. This remains the only apples-to-apples comparison in this issue. If the vehicle was the issue, or at the very least a contributing factor, the tread separations between the Firestone and Goodyear tires would be in the same ballpark. They are not even close. That's why Ford is replacing the Firestone Wilderness AT tires.

Second, when Ford engineers tested the Wilderness AT tires over the past nine months, they found that the tires were more sensitive to stresses and consistently failed at higher rates, at lower speeds and lighter loads than other tires tested, including the Goodyear tires used on Explorer.

Third, the failure rates of Firestone Wilderness AT tires differ dramatically based on the plant in which they were made. If the vehicle were the cause of these separations, the tire plant location would not make a difference in rate of tread separations reported.

Finally, Firestone CEO John Lampe testified last year before Congress under oath and said the following: "We made some bad tires and we take full responsibility for those." When a Senator asked, "Are bad tires equated to be tires that have defects of some kind," Mr. Lampe responded, "Yes, sir."

Fact: The tires have performed better on Ranger, however the Firestone tread separation claims on Ranger are still higher than average. And, importantly, the Firestone tread separation claims on Ranger are higher than Goodyear claims on Explorer.

In the June 11, 2001-dated issue of Business Week, Brian O'Neill, president of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, was asked about the Explorer-Ranger comparison. He said, "It's an apples-to-oranges comparison that has no validity in my opinion."

Ford agrees with Mr. O'Neill. Tires used on any SUV perform differently compared with tires installed on a pickup. The two vehicles are used differently. SUVs typically weigh more, and frequently are more heavily loaded, putting more stress on the tires. A sensitive tire, like we have discovered with the Wilderness AT, will not perform as well under these conditions.

Nevertheless, the larger-than-average numbers of tread separation claims for Firestone tires on Rangers are proof - proof that these tires should be replaced. This is why Wilderness AT tires on Ranger are part of Ford's replacement campaign.

Fact: Not true. Ford has conducted many tests comparing Explorer with competitive SUVs and we have shared our findings with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. By inducing a tread separation at speeds approaching 70 mph on Explorer and competitive vehicles, with various load conditions, the Explorer's performance before, during and after a tread separation was found to be typical of other SUVs. This exhaustive study was shared with NHTSA and Firestone in March 2001.

The real-world accident experience shows when a Firestone tire separated on an Explorer, a rollover accident occurred on average less than 7 percent of the time. This information is based on Firestone's own claims data. Government data show Explorer and competitive SUVs have similar rollover experience in tire-related accidents. Unfortunately, Firestone tires on Explorer have separated with far greater frequency than tires on other SUVs and, of course, Goodyear tires on Explorer. The two known Goodyear tire separations, out of about 3 million Goodyear tires in service on Explorers over the last six years, did not result in any accidents, rollovers or injuries.

Fact: Ford's analysis of government data show that the Explorer has a considerably better safety record than other SUVs both in terms of fatal crashes and fatal rollover crashes. Safetyforum is misinterpreting data by using unverified reports for a variety of manufacturers. It's also misleading because it compares the Explorer to all light trucks and not just competitive SUVs.

Ford and the U.S. government use tire makers' claims data, not this collection of unverified reports. Even Safetyforum, which is a plaintiff's attorney resource organization, says they do not take into account the tire model in their analysis. The fact is that Ford's testing shows Explorers perform like other SUVs before, during and after a tire tread separation, and real world safety data show that Explorer is among the safest vehicles on the road year after year.

Fact: That's just plain wrong. The Explorer team sought to develop a safe vehicle, recognizing that safety performance among the leaders in its class would help it to become the sales leader. And that's just what they accomplished - over the past 10 years Explorer consistently has ranked among the safest vehicles in its class based on Ford's analysis of the Federal government's real world database of crash statistics. And Explorer has been the best-selling SUV in the world each year.

Memos from engineers working on the original Explorer show them working hard to make it a safety leader, and sweating over small changes necessary for prototype vehicles to pass Ford's stringent internal safety tests that ensure safe, predictable vehicle responses in severe "limit handling" maneuvers. And yes, from time to time, they debated among themselves in their search for the optimum solutions. That is what our engineers get paid to do. If any version of those prototypes didn't pass every stringent test, changes were made until they did. That's exactly why prototypes are built. By the time the first Explorer was driven by the first customer on a real road, the vehicle had passed all of Ford's internal safety tests.

Fact: While important, government data is not the only part of the evaluation of the Explorer. On March 28 and 29, 2001, Ford presented NHTSA with an exhaustive analysis of Explorer. (This technical analysis is available from NHTSA.) The analysis included stringent on-road and computer-aided testing of the Explorer and comparative SUVs in its class. The analysis dissected the performance of every major component of the Explorer that has anything to do with ride and handling, including emergency handling maneuvers and tread separation of the tires. Contrary to recent Firestone charges, it is a fact that Firestone received this thorough analysis from Ford on March 30, 2001.