TV program slams Goodyear over tire

By: Drivers.com staff

Date: Sunday, 22. August 2010

In May, 2000, three women driving from Phoenix, Arizona to San Diego had a close call when the right rear tire of their Chevrolet Suburban blew apart on a remote rural road. The driver somehow managed to regain control. They changed the tire a Goodyear LRE light truck tire and carried on. But a few miles up the road the left rear tire blew apart. This time they were not so lucky. The vehicle rolled down a 100-foot embankment, flipping several times. One of the women died.

In its opening show of the new season on October 10, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's Fifth Estate TV program reveals that Goodyear knew about problems with its load range E (LRE) light truck tires as far back as 1995. Goodyear had introduced a new design of its LRE tire in 1992. It's used primarily on large SUVs, pickup trucks, ambulances, trailers and 12- and 15-passenger vans. In 1995, Goodyear set up an internal team to investigate why the tires were failing at such a high rate, says Fifth Estate, but they never told either the Canadian or U.S. governments that they were experiencing problems with the tires.

In 1996, Goodyear developed a 'fix' for the tire by adding a nylon cap to better hold the tire together. However, they didn't recall any of the millions of tires they'd already sold that didn't contain the nylon cap. "Furthermore," says Fifth Estate, "they phased the nylon cap in over a four-year period at the company's three U.S. plants that make LRE tires. More accidents and deaths occurred in the ensuing years that likely could have been prevented.

These deaths included three U.S. Airforce personnel who died in a crash in Saudia Arabia in 1997. The Air Force had already experienced five incidents of tires coming apart and launched its own investigation. It pulled the tires from its vehicles and subsequently advised the U.S. Army to do the same when it, too experienced problems.

Goodyear fought this decision, say Los Angeles-based lawyer Christine Spagnoli, who represented one of the victims of the military vehicle crash. They even tried to convince the government to continue using the tires, she told Fifth Estate.

Spagnoli was involved in a previous case in which Brian Mathews, a Los Angeles bomb disposal expert sued Goodyear when a similar Goodyear tire on his Chevrolet Suburban disintegrated in January, 1996. Goodyear settled the case. In her research, Spagnoli uncovered documents that revealed Goodyear's knowledge of the problem with the LRE tires. However, she was prevented from revealing the contents of those documents by a court-backed gag order in which Goodyear claimed that making the documents public would reveal trade secrets.

The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened an investigation into Goodyear's LRE tire in November, 2000. However, it closed the investigation in the Spring of 2002 when Goodyear agreed to recall 200,000 of the LRE tires -- those that were installed on 15-passenger vans and ambulances. However, Fifth Estate reports, the company produced 27 million of the tires and one estimate suggests that 8 million may still be on the road.

( Video copies of the program can be purchased from the CBC Web site.)