NASHVILLE, Tenn. (Oct. 25, 2000)—Bridgestone Corp. Chairman Yoichiro Kaizaki said the interim report from a team of technical investigators from Tokyo suggests there were no major development or production problems with the Firestone tire lines being recalled.
The Bridgestone team toured several BFS plants in North America to discover the root cause of tread separations in some of 6.5 million recalled Firestone ATX and Wilderness AT tires. A BFS spokeswoman said she did not immediately know if Bridgestone was making copies of the interim report public.
Meanwhile, BFS spokespersons said there was nothing new about the lawsuits filed in Mexico City by an attorney who claims the failure of Firestone tires have caused 28 deaths in that country, or about the verbal settlement reached between BFS and the children of a Texas couple who died in a crash when the tread separated from a Firestone tire on their vehicle.