Firestone and Ford Case

This case discusses the ethical issue of two large manufacture companies that called Ford and Firestone, which were responsible for producing the Ford Explorer Sport Utility Vehicles (SUVs). However, in may 2000, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) issued a letter to Ford and Firestone due to the high incidence of tire failure occurred on the Ford Explorer. The argument is whether Firestone and Ford did the correct actions to take responsible for their customers or not.

In the view of contractual theory, Ford and Firestone both did not do good job. From the Ford side, the company did not comply with the customer's safety by using the risk tires that led the accident in Saudi Arabia and tried to hide the information about the product risk. My recommendation is Ford should inform more instruction to customers of any risk that could be happen. Form the Firestone side, although the company comply its duty with Ford's specific requirement, it also hiding some detail information about the cause of the accident by conducting recall as customer satisfaction. My recommendation is Firestone should improve their quality standards of the tires to guarantee customer's safety.

In the view of due care theory, Ford and Firestone also both did not do perfect job. From the Ford side, although the company did a lot of research and test to predict the risk, the warning of risk never be informed to customers. After the accident happened, Ford just changed tire weight instead of change the SUV's design. My recommendation is Ford should improve the design of SUV to increase the stability. From the Firestone side, Firestone developed the tire that meet the Ford's specification and had no impact on the vehicle's stability. But this kind of specification causes a lot of accidents. My recommendation is Firestone should find out the potential risk of the Ford's specification and put the customer's safety at first place.

In the view of social cost theory, Both Ford and Firestone did not do correct action at all. Company should have responsible to pay the costs of any injuries through any defects in the product. However, in the case Firestone and Ford only cared about their business benefits and future strategy. By ignoring accident customers' lose, two companies only paid the cost of recalling products. My recommendation is Ford and Firestone should pay all the injury cost caused by their product.

Overall, Firestone and Ford both have moral responsibility for accidents. Actually they had known the potential risk of the tires for several years, but they choose to hide information about possible tire defect to keep their benefits. Unfortunately, they did not recognize that doing a sustainable business could not only depend on the revenue. The more important part of business should be reputation and loyalty. Ford and Firestone just break the route