Back in the '70s, Firestone was in a similar position. You may remember the Radial 500 tires and the fiasco that followed. The company's director of development wrote a memo stating, "We are making an inferior quality radial tire, which will subject us to belt-edge separation at high mileage."
So what did Firestone do? Nothing. They kept it hush-hush and kept on manufacturing the 500s. A high number of consumers were completely dissatisfied with their 500s and brought them back. Firestone still did nothing.
They should've pulled the tire off the market. Instead, they made and sold nearly 24 million over the next five years.
Complaints about the 500s were so high that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration mailed out survey cards to 87,000 purchasers of new cars. The card asked them to indicate what brand of tires they had and list their complaints.
Out of 87,000 cards, only 5,400 were sent back. But the results showed Firestone's performance was much worse than the other brands identified in the survey.
Then Firestone made fatal PR Mistake #1. When they found out the NHTSA was going to publish the results, they filed a restraining order. This prevented the results from being distributed...but only temporarily. This legal move made headlines and sparked a lot of curiosity. The public wondered why Firestone was so intent on blocking the information. What did they have to hide?
Congressional hearings followed. The NHTSA sent Firestone a special order of 27 questions. But then, the company made PR Mistake #2. Instead of cooperating with the NHTSA, they sent back an aggressive, legal-type response and refused to answer most of the questions. People started getting the feeling that Firestone was a company that cared more about its profits even at the price of public safety.
During the hearings, company officials claimed it was the consumer that was actually to blame. Not Firestone. They said the blowouts and tread separation of the 500s weren't from their tires. Instead, these accidents were caused by motorists overloading them, hitting them against the curb, not keeping enough air in them and driving too fast. In the public's eye, blaming consumers was Firestone's PR Mistake #3.
PR Mistake #4 occurred when the company's spokesperson was caught contradicting himself and giving false statements during the hearings. Evidence clearly supported the allegations that Firestone knew it was making defective tires.
In the end, the defective tires contributed to 41 deaths and 65 injuries. Hundreds of lawsuits were filed. At one point, 250 were pending simultaneously.
Finally, the government forced Firestone to recall 7.5 million radial tires.
Just 25 years later, Bridgestone/Firestone seemed to be reliving the past. Attempts to remedy the situation were downright avoided. So much so that Firestone's PR firm fired the tire maker from its client list.