3. What do you think Firestone did wrong in their approach in South America and the United States? Why do you think the company waited so long to tell customers about the problem?

I believe that this question is about the recall of defective Firestone tires on some Ford trucks and SUVs.

Recalls are not only embarrassing, they are also extremely expensive. On August, 2000, Firestone had to launch a massive recall in order to replace 23 million tires manufactured between 1991 and 1996. The recall itself costed almost $10 billion to Ford and Firestone (including closing factories and lost sales) and many more millions in lawsuits since more than 62 people died and more than 100 severe accidents happened.

First of all, both Firestone and Ford did everything wrong, Ford started the recall in Saudi Arabia while people in the US and South America were dying due to accidents resulting from exploding tires. They tried to keep the problem secret but it was simply too big.

They did everything to keep the issue because they knew about the magnitude of their failure, only the Takata airbag recall costed more money. Most car manufacturers and auto parts suppliers are very big companies that move a lot of money, and any recall costs tons of money due to the number of cars produced and sold.

Ford reacted before Firestone, since most of the bad rep fell over them because consumers don't care who provides the parts, they care about the whole car. Until the US government intervened, Firestone kept trying to hide the problem. Japanese headquarters said it was an American problem and American management said they didn't know what was happening.