Uneasy Riders

Congress looks at radial tires

In June of 1974 the Louis Neal family was driving near Las Vegas when one of their car's Firestone 500 steel-belted radial tires blew, causing the car to go out of control and crash. Mother and father were killed, and one child was crippled. Five surviving children sued, charging that the tire was defective. Last week Firestone settled out of court for $1.4 million. Far from being an isolated case, the accident is one of a string that has raised unsettling questions about the safety of U.S. steel-belted radials.

The House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigation opened hearings last week into the safety of Firestone 500 radials, and may extend its probe to all U.S. steel-belted radials. The subcommittee reports 15 deaths since 1973 in which blowouts of such tires were the major cause or the chief contributing factor. It also cites 16 other crashes that resulted in 31 injuries, and hundreds of accidents involving property damage.

The tires have rigid, steel-reinforced belts circling the tire under the tread. The problems are apparently the result of heat buildup within the tire that causes the tread to separate from the steel-belted inner layer and produces blowouts. Firestone, which sold about 23 million of its 500-model radials between 1972 and 1976, recalled 410,000 of them on four occasions because of manufacturing defects.

In 1977 the Center for Auto Safety, founded by Ralph Nader and Consumers Union, prodded the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to investigate. The agency surveyed 87,000 owners of new cars, asking if they had complaints about tires. In all, 2,226 owners of Firestone tires returned questionnaires, and 46% reported problems. By contrast, the complaint rate for other brands of steel-belted radials was: Goodrich 33%, Goodyear 32%, Uniroyal 32%, General Tire 26% and Michelin less than 2%.

These figures were "inadvertently" given out although Firestone, charging that the agency loaded the dice against the company by sending half the questionnaires to Firestone owners, had gained a court order suppressing the report. If its tires have drawn a large number of complaints, say company spokesmen, it is simply because Firestone has sold more radials than its competitors. Malcolm Lovell, chairman of the Tire Industry Safety Council, a producers' group, contends that the problem is that too many Americans let their radials become underinflated.

In any case, Firestone started phasing out the 500s about 18 months ago in favor of the new and presumably improved 721 radials. Last April, the company sold off the last batch of its 500s at discount prices in several Southeastern markets, but millions are still on the road.

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