Ford test truck catches fire

[truckofwinandawesome]

 

I would imagine that if it was left to burn out on its own, all that would remain would be the rolling chassis minus tires and aluminum wheels. Truck very likely had aluminum body panels, and aluminum melts at about half the temp of steel. They likely picked up all the big pieces on a flat bed, and came back later to pick up the stuff in the last picture.

 

As has been said a couple of times in this thread, what happened is exactly what they hope happens. QA testing is not considered successful unless something like this happens. Doubt we will ever know what the cause was. I think Ford likely bought the rights to that video and it will not be made public until it cannot cause any negative public opinion.

 

I have always wondered why the Pinto is the default "go to" example of vehicles that burst into flames upon collision when the 73 to 87 full size GM pickup trucks with the side saddle fuel tanks had 20 times more deaths due to fuel tank fires than the Pinto did. The Dateline NBC show fiasco did not change the actual number of deaths, but did reverse public opinion on the facts. The Vega of the same era as the Pinto also had the same fuel tank exposure to rear end collisions, along with the same chance of fire, but, somehow managed to escape publicity.

 

its because the way Ford Dealt with the problem parallels in many ways with the Current GM Ignition Recall; Ford KNEW there was a Problem, Refused to Fix it, covered it up, and then was Forced to Fix the problem by the Government, much like GM KNEW there was a Problem with the Ignition Switches, Refused to Fix it, Covered it up, and then was Forced to Fix the problem by the Government.

[Doug_Scott]

 

its because the way Ford Dealt with the problem parallels in many ways with the Current GM Ignition Recall; Ford KNEW there was a Problem, Refused to Fix it, covered it up, and then was Forced to Fix the problem by the Government, much like GM KNEW there was a Problem with the Ignition Switches, Refused to Fix it, Covered it up, and then was Forced to Fix the problem by the Government.

 

I don't think it was done in the way you feel it went down. Neither was a conspiracy by either corporation. At the time the GM issue occurred GM was going through major financial problems, as was Ford and Chrysler. Managers/directors were under extreme pressure to keep costs down as best they could. Remember these are individual human life forms. Making changes to the ignition switch was not as simple as changing a spring or changing the ignition key design.

 

GM (as well as the other two corporations) are ISO certified. Cannot say for sure, but, they should be ISO9000 certified, and ISO9000 includes ISO9001. Without getting into my regular long explanations of things, I will limit this to the basics, if you need more details, google it.

 

ISO standards are essentially documentation of the entire operation of creating an automobile. Every component must go through extensive quality design, manufacture, and testing sequence, all the while documenting the results. Even the testing procedure has its own ISO procedure documents. What this means is that to simply change the slot in the ignition key to a single hole design requires the entire ISO stands to be applied to this new part. What takes less than 30 seconds to implement(once the external supply company has completed their own procedure to satisfy their ISO requirement) will now take likely a month to complete. This assumes that the key change was done without any bugs in the system. All of this adds to the cost of implementing this minor change. BTW, all this gets triggered by changing or issuing a new part number. There can be 15 people involved in this one minor change in design. That ISO certification process is not done just the once in the beginning, it is performed by following the procedure outlined in the very beginning of this change.

 

By not changing the part number, their ISO certification procedure is not implemented, at their level, but, the outsourced manufacturer will still have to apply the ISO procedure to that new key. Unless they also make the change, without documenting it at all. This simple virtually costless change is everything BUT that.

 

In the ignition key issue there are quite a few solutions, some very simple (the first two official solutions for example) and some are quite complex. They could change the orientation of the final key position to remove the lever effect, or change the firmware in the pcm to not shut the engine down if vehicle speed is higher than x mph, and brakes are being applied. Upon application of that firmware feature, warn driver both visually and with audio warning going through radio, like low fuel does.

 

While on this topic, The Firestone/Ford issue is a good example of the wrong party forced to take the responsibility. Firestone made the tire, but, Ford was the one that told owners to run stupidly low tire pressures in order to get a nice smooth ride. It may have been a good idea in Alaska, but, a deadly idea in the Florida Keys mid summer. Still cannot believe Firestone has to take the bullet.

['01LS1]

Great write up Doug Scott. The media finds it easier to tell the $.50 cent story as they can drag peoples emotions into it & lead them to false conclusions.

 

In terms of Ford & Firestone. That shut down the tire plant about 40 miles from where I live in Decatur, IL. Lot of people lost many decent to good jobs over that deal.

[Doug_Scott]

Great write up Doug Scott. The media finds it easier to tell the $.50 cent story as they can drag peoples emotions into it & lead them to false conclusions.

 

In terms of Ford & Firestone. That shut down the tire plant about 40 miles from where I live in Decatur, IL. Lot of people lost many decent to good jobs over that deal.

 

Firestone has taken a few large hits of bad press that were not deserved. I worked at a Firestone repair shop back when Firestone owned the stores. I started just when they were finishing up the radial tire issue on the first large deployment of radials on GM automobiles. At the time the public was told to blame firestone for the massive failure and subsequent recall of the 500 series of tires. GM wanted a locally made tire(early version of the made in the usa claims) for their new radial tuned suspension, and they wanted to control some aspects of the tire design(at the time I was told that was contained in the TPC spec). Firestone needed more time, GM needed millions of tires. GM says supply them, or we don't buy from you again. GM wanted the TPC coded 500 radial, Firestone wanted to supply the V1 tire. I am not 100% sure of it being V1 or just V, but, the V or V1 tire got great tread life, and very low failure rate. Firestone was faced with essentially being driven out of business by the loss of GM sales, or cross fingers and hope the 500 tire worked out.

The recall ended up being for near 15 million tires, and they were replace free of charge, regardless of tread remaining. You would think the loss of giving away 15 million tires would put them out of business. Just the opposite happened. The brake and suspension repairs that were generated by giving the tires away more than made up the loss of the recall. Cars with the tires were over 5 years old, and were firmly in the brake job window. The customer coming in and getting 4 new tires for free(sometimes 5 depending on the spare), were more than happy to let their local Firestone store repair the brakes and suspension as needed.

BTW, the 721 tire that replaced the 500 tires were based on the original V or V1 tire, and were dependable as hell. Even the TPC spec'd 721 were a good tire.