Post by jim <"sjedgingN0Sp"@,net>Post by C. E. WhiteThe facts are clear - Pinto were no more likely to catch on fire
than other vehicles from that era of the same size. Many cars of
that era had gas tank mounted in the same location in the same
manner (for instance my 280Z had a similar tank location). Even more
modern vehicles have gas tanks mounted in this manner. Late 90's
Jeeps are now being investigated becasue the Ditlow gang is
fishing
for new clients.
That's all true, but mis-leading. Lots of cars rupture gas tanks on rear
end collisions and some of them catch fire. The thing that made a
relatively minor rear end collision bad with the Pinto was that the
ruptured gas tank broke through the floor and spilled gas into the
passenger compartment.
This is not true. Pinto's had a separate rear compartment floor. I
have never seen a claim that the rear floor ruputred. This claim is
associated with some other Fords from the 60's and 70's (Falcon,
Mustang, Fairlane) that used the top of the gas tank as the floor of
the trunk (the so called drop in gas tank design). Pintos did nto use
this design.
Post by jim <"sjedgingN0Sp"@,net>Plus the rear end impact had a tendency to jam
the doors so the passengers were trapped inside with the burning fuel.
Also not true - at least in the sense that this was more likely to
happen to Pinto's than other samll cars from that era. I have seenthis
claim associated with Mustangs Convertibles from the 90's, but never
for Pintos.
Post by jim <"sjedgingN0Sp"@,net>It also didn't help that it came out in court that Ford had
discovered
all of this in crash tests and had made a cost benefit calculation that
predicted that 100's of people would be burned alive and 1000's of cars
would burned but the calculated cost of settling those lawsuits that
this would produce would be less than the cost of fixing the
problem. Of
course this turned out to be a huge miscalculation on their part
because that bit of information sent the jury awards through the roof
and if I recall there even were homicide charges filed.
Also not true. From http://www.car-forums.com/s10/t2240.html :
"More startling, Schwartz shows that everyone's received ideas about
the fabled "smoking gun" memo are false (the one supposedly dealing
with how it was cheaper to save money on a small part and pay off
later lawsuits... and immortalized in the movie "Fight Club"). The
actual memo did not pertain to Pintos, or even Ford products, but to
American cars in general; it dealt with rollovers, not rear-end
collisions; it did not contemplate the matter of tort liability at
all, let alone accept it as cheaper than a design change; it assigned
a value to human life because federal regulators, for whose eyes it
was meant, themselves employed that concept in their deliberations;
and the value it used was one that they, the regulators, had set forth
in documents."
You have combined several alleged problems from multiple vehicles and
attriuted them all to the Pinto. How typical. I owned a Pinto at the
time of the horror stories, as did my Sister. Ours were recalled to
install extra protection for the fuel system Three things were done:
1) A polyethelyne shield was installed that wrapped under the bottom
of the gas tank. This was supposed to reduce the possibility that the
gas tank might rupture in a severe rear collision. It was claimed that
in some cases the Pinto fuel tank had ruptured when the rear end was
so severely crushed that the fuel tank was forced into contact with
the rear axle. Ford tests showed that this was no more likely with a
Pinto than was the case for many other small cars with similar gas
tank locations, but in the end they were forced to add this extra
protection.
2) A longer filler pipe. On a Pinto, the filler pipe fitted into the
gas tank from the side through a rubber grommet. It was alleged that
in the case of a severe rear impact the gas tank and rear fender could
be deformed in such a way that filler pipe would be pulled free of the
tank. The original pipe already extended into the tank by around 8
inches (I know, I removed the tank from my Pinto to get water out of
the tank). I have no idea how much longer the replacement pipe was.
3) The area where the filler pipe was attached to the rear fender was
beefed up. The recall added an extra metal flange to enusre that the
filler pipe would not be torn from the rear fender.
Instead of repeating old, bad, and misleading information, read this -
http://www.pointoflaw.com/articles/The_Myth_of_the_Ford_Pinto_Case.pdf
.
Here is the main conclusion from that article:
"It is now time to sum up. The strong claim that the Pinto was a
firetrap entails a misconception. To be sure, the Pinto did contain a
design problem that was non-trivial and to some extent distinctive.
Even so, the number of fatalities that resulted from that design
problem is a minor fraction of the fatality estimates relied on by
those who present the "firetrap" characterization.Moreover, when all
vehicle fire fatalities are considered, the Pinto turns out to have
been less dangerous than the average subcompact and only slightly more
dangerous than the average car. Indeed, when occupant fatalities from
all highway causes are considered, the Pinto performed respectably.
Yet even if the general portrayal of the Pinto as a firetrap. should
be rejected as false, a limited core of the firetrap myth seems fair
enough: the Pinto's record in rear-end fire fatalities was not only
much worse than the all-car average but was apparently somewhat worse
than the record of most (though not all) of its subcompact
competitors."
Ed
