Tires Controversy: Firestone And Ford Explorer (NHTSA)

The Firestone Tires controversy was a period of unusually high cases of reported tire failures installed on the Ford Explorer and other Ford vehicles. The tires were manufactured by Firestone, a major tire supplier who had a business relationship with Ford going back almost 75 years. The failures were linked to thread separation on the tires that often caused the vehicle to rollover. The tire failures were mostly occurring in countries like Brazil or Saudi Arabia where the temperature subjected onto the tires were considerably higher than normal. At first, it did not seem that the tire problems were an ethical engineering issue. Yet, when the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) opened an investigation into the tire failures,

The first and fundamental canon in the NSPE code as stated is to hold paramount the safety, health, and welfare of the public. Firestone had clearly violated this code since the company was well aware of the glaring issues with their tires but chose not to act upon them. Firestone’s actions in this controversy showed their lack of concern for the safety of its consumers which should hold the utmost importance to engineers. According to utilitarianism, Firestone acted immorally in this case by not following the principle of utility. It is apparent that the company violated the principle of utility as they caused many suffering and endangered the well-being of the public by causing many injuries and deaths. The workers at the company clearly knew there was an issue with the tires when bubbles were detected on the body of the tires. They did not discard the tires with the bubbles on them as stipulated due to the pressures from the higher management to keep production

Their choice to not replace clearly defected tires saved the plant from increased production cost, time, and energy expenses. In the short term, it made sense for them to take that course of action to maximize the well-being of the company and minimize their losses. However, it seemed that the company did not consider the long-term consequences of their action especially in consideration of the public’s safety. The Firestone manufacturers could have informed the Ford engineers about the potential issues regarding the quality of their tires due to high production demand. This would have alerted the engineers at Ford and possibly resulted in more testing to be made on the Explorer with the Firestone tires. It would have been beneficial for both companies if more tests were done to ensure the quality of their product met the required standards. In the long run, it meant keeping their integrity as engineers who prioritize safety above all other