Ford Vows SUV Safety Improvements

DETROIT (AP) â€” Ford Motor Co. says it will offer tire pressure monitors and other safety improvements on all its Ford-branded sport utility vehicles by 2005. <br><br>The changes, to be detailed Tuesday,

Tuesday, January 9th 2001, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

DETROIT (AP) â€” Ford Motor Co. says it will offer tire pressure monitors and other safety improvements on all its Ford-branded sport utility vehicles by 2005.

The changes, to be detailed Tuesday, come as the company is still dealing with the aftermath of defective Firestone tires on Ford trucks that have been linked to about 140 deaths. But Ford defended the safety of its SUVs, and said the moves were another in a series of improvements.

``Sport utilities as a class of vehicles are safer overall than passenger cars, and each Ford SUV is among the safest in its class,'' said Gurminder Bedi, Ford's vice president for Ford truck. ``With the leadership actions we are committing to today, we are making the upcoming generation of Ford SUVs even safer.''

Ford said it would introduce a tire pressure sensor on an unnamed SUV model next year and eventually offer the technology on all its trucks and SUVs. The sensor mounts inside the tire and wirelessly transmits warnings about over- or under-inflation to the vehicle.

Tire pressure was one of the major areas of inquiry in the recall of 6.5 million Firestone tires, most mounted on Ford Explorer SUVs, whose failure has been tied to thousands of accidents.

Pressure determines how much weight a tire can hold, and influences how much heat builds up in the tire. Ford had recommended that the Firestone Wilderness AT tires on the Explorer be inflated to 26 pounds per square inch, in part to improve the stability of the vehicle.

But in an analysis released last month, Bridgestone/Firestone said that a Wilderness tire inflated to 26 psi on an Explorer could fall below industry standards for weight capacity if left unchecked for four months through normal pressure loss.

After the recall, Bridgestone/Firestone recommended that Ford raise the recommended pressure to 30 psi. Ford engineers contended that at 26 psi, there was a margin of safety large enough to handle regular pressure loss, but the company eventually went along with the tire maker's suggestion.

The other safety features Ford will offer include:

â€” Anti-lock brakes that sense which wheels have the best traction and can distribute braking force.

â€” A system of air bags, seat belts and sensors that measure the severity of a crash and adjust the force of air bag deployment and seat belt tension.

â€” A side curtain air bag system that responds to side impacts and rollovers. The curtain is designed to prevent passengers from being ejected from the vehicle in rollover accidents.

â€” Electronic stability control, which uses the vehicle's brakes to keep a vehicle from skidding.

â€” Lowering the bumpers to meet those of passenger cars. The higher bumpers of SUVs have been blamed for causing severe injuries to accident victims in passenger cars.

Ford said all of the new features except for the tire pressure monitor would be offered on the 2002 Explorer and would be made available on other models by 2005. It was not clear whether the features would be standard or optional.

Other automakers have offered some similar features on their SUVs, and some, such as Mercedes-Benz and BMW, have heavily promoted the safety of their vehicles.

Ford president and CEO Jacques Nasser said Monday that in spite of the tire recall, safety remained a major reason for buying a SUV, and that Ford was not in danger of losing SUV buyers because of safety concerns.

``I don't think over the longer term people will relate the bad tire issue to sport utility vehicles,'' he said. ``I think customers and the market will judge us based on our behavior and the way we reacted.