Just a quick one
posted by TerryS: The Explorer has consistantly outsold other SUVs, and ranks highest for out-of-the-box quality.
published June 17, 2001
Attention shifts from Firestone to Ford Explorer
Many experts now say the rollover propensity of the SUV is more to blame for fatal accidents than faulty tires.
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Robert Harold Miller was traveling north on Interstate 75 in Lee County on March 29 when a rear tire ripped apart. His 1996 sport utility vehicle spun out of control at 70 mph before resting on its side.
Miller, 57, of Fort Myers was killed instantly.
The vehicle was a Ford Explorer. But the tires were not Firestone.
That accident, involving a Cooper tire, is one of the many that have come to light in recent weeks in which an Explorer flips after a tire -- not made by Firestone -- falls apart or after a driver swerves to avoid something in the road.
The crashes, and the most recent data that has just been compiled and examined by Firestone and by the Safety Forum, a consumer safety group, have shifted much of the blame for deadly rollovers across the nation from Bridgestone/Firestone to Ford Motor Co. and the Explorer, the world's best-selling sport utility vehicle.
Firestone, of course, has an ax to grind. The tiremaker has taken the majority of the blame in this crisis. But now, the company is fighting back, doing its own research to try to shift responsibility to Ford.
It was Firestone, for example, that broke off its 100-year-old relationship with Ford last month just before Ford told owners of its light trucks and SUVs equipped with Firestone tires to take their vehicles back to dealerships for replacement tires.
Industry experts such as Safety Forum, Ralph Nader's Public Citizen and the Center for Auto Safety say that Ford is even more responsible than the tiremaker for the problem that the government estimates led to 174 deaths nationwide. They want the company to be punished, and they want the vehicle to be taken off the road.
"At its core the Ford-Firestone tragedy was largely the responsibility of Ford Motor Co.," said Joan Claybrook, president of the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen. Claybrook headed the National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration during the Carter administration
1 st Feb 2002
BARSTOW, Calif. -- Ford Motor Co.'s Explorer design on Thursday was found defective for the first time by a jury, which may signal new danger for Ford in other Explorer rollover lawsuits.
The automaker has defended itself in court saying Bridgestone/Firestone Inc. tires, which were recalled last year, were to blame for accidents.
"Now the flood gates may be open," said Garo Mardirossian, the lawyer who represented the family who sued over injuries suffered when its sport-utility vehicle rolled.
"A jury for the first time in the Explorer's history found the vehicle to have a defect in its high propensity to roll over. The real story is it's not the tires."
The Barstow Superior Court jury voted 10-2 that the 1994 Explorer was defective due to a high center of gravity and faulty suspension, Mardirossian said. Barstow is in the Mojave desert east of Los Angeles.
Ford isn't liable for damages because the jury also found that a dealership negligently failed to fix a vibration that caused the truck to veer into a freeway barrier. The dealership faces the damages phase of the trial beginning Tuesday.
The Gozukaras were driving to Las Vegas in 1997 when their Explorer allegedly began to shake violently and careened out of control, hitting a concrete barrier and then rolling over four times. Catherine Gozukara, 40, is a paraplegic and lost her unborn child. Her 41-year-old husband, Agop, broke several bones in his legs and struggles to walk.
Ford's attorney in the Barstow trial, Daniel Rodman, couldn't be reached for comment. Ford spokeswoman Kathleen Vokes offered condolences over the Gozukara's injuries and said the company would have no other comment tonight.
The Barstow case doesn't involve allegations that a Firestone tire failed. In two other Ford rollover cases that likewise didn't allege tire failures, juries in Arizona and Texas found the company wasn't responsible for deaths and injuries.
Dearborn, Michigan-based Ford has settled about 200 lawsuits with plaintiffs suing for serious injury and wrongful death involving tire-tread separations. In January 2000, Ford paid $30 million to settle with a quadriplegic woman the day her rollover-tread failure trial was to begin in Texas.
Ford documents show that one of its engineers, assigned to examine fatal rollovers in Venezuela, concluded the Explorer's shock absorber system was 40 percent to blame for wrecks in that country. Plaintiffs submitted those company documents in a class- action lawsuits against Ford and Firestone.
Great out of the box quality..
June 15 2004
Ford lawyer makes Explorer apology
By Eric Mayne and Brett Clanton / The Detroit News
A record $368.6 million jury verdict earlier this month against Ford Motor Co. in San Diego ended the automaker’s win streak defending the Ford Explorer’s design and safety, but also may have opened the door for more lawsuits.
Plaintiffs’ lawyers and legal experts are abuzz over closing arguments by a Ford lawyer during the punitive stage of the trial. The statements seemed to fly in the face of Ford’s fierce defense of the best-selling SUV’s safety to Congress, federal regulators and in nationwide TV commercials.
“It’s impossible not to be angry at Ford Motor Company for what decisions that in marketing and selling this Ford Explorer it knowingly put a defective product out on the market and caused the family tragedy that you see before you now,” Ford lawyer Anthony Sonnett told a jury that had already awarded $122.6 million in compensatory damages to a woman who was paralyzed in a rollover crash.
Ford contends Sonnett was not representing the automaker’s opinion.
He was merely acknowledging the jurors’ earlier conclusion that the Explorer had safety issues and Ford should have taken corrective action.
But Sonnett went on to tell jurors: “We are sorry that we let you down. The engineers are sorry that they let the rest of the company down. There is nothing else I can really say to you at this point. I understand a feeling that perhaps it’s too little too late, or it rings hollow, or (Ford Chairman and CEO) William C. Ford (Jr.) is not here to say it himself. But I wouldn’t feel right if I ended this without saying that indeed we are sorry.”
After Sonnett’s closing, the jurors socked Ford with an additional $246 million in punitive damages, concluding Ford had acted with fraud or malice in its design and marketing of the Explorer.
Punitive damages are assessed as a penalty against defendants. Compensatory damages are awarded to victims and paid by defendants.