FORD PINTO

CASE HISTORY

One evening in the mid-1960s, Arjay Miller was driving home from his office who was the director Ford Motor Company. On a crowded highway, another car struck his car from the rear which took fire gods grace he survived.

INTRODUCTION

In May of 1968, the Ford Motor Company had a market survey . During the first few years sales of the Pinto were excellent, but there was trouble on the horizon.

THE FAULT
Through early production of the model, it became a focus of a major scandal because of the following reasons: Due to the weak bumper and the less screws in between the fuel tank the tank would easily go hit the differential. Also it was noticed that the doors could potentially jam during an accident (due to poor reinforcing) .

THE REASONS OF FAULTS

RnD was not utilised properly because of VOLKSWAGON. Ford engineers discovered in pre-production crash tests that rear-end collisions would rupture the Pinto's fuel system extremely easily. Because assembly-line machinery was already tooled when engineers found this defect, top Ford officials decided to manufacture the car anywayexploding gas tank and alleven though Ford owned the patent on a much safer gas tank.

For more than eight years afterwards, Ford successfully lobbied, with extraordinary vigor and some blatant lies, against a key government safety standard that would have forced the company to change the Pinto's fire-prone gas tank.

EVEN AFTER SEVEN YEARS

One day there was a mother and her son travelling in a new pinto which suddenly met with an accident from back where the car caught fire, sad was the mother died on the spot and her son survived.

THE HIDDEN INFORMATION

Internal company documents in police possession show that Ford has crashtested the Pinto at a top-secret site more than 40 times and that every test made at over 25 mph without special structural alteration of the car has resulted in a ruptured fuel tank. Despite this, Ford officials denied under oath having crashtested the Pinto.

REASONS FOR LATE REACTIONS

It was the lee strategy working in the company which said that the car making price shouldnt exceed more than $2,000. Normally, an auto company doesn't begin tooling until the other processes are almost over . But lee's speed-up meant Pinto tooling went on at the same time as product development. So when crash tests revealed a serious defect in the gas tank, it was too late. The tooling was well under way With the secret testing done it came out that the model can be made safer by small measure by putting a non-expensive plastic baffle placed between the front of the gas tank and the differential housing, so those four bolts would not perforate the tank.

Cont.
Safety was not at all in the list of product objectives Even when a crash test showed that that one-pound, one-dollar piece of plastic stopped the puncture of the gas tank, it was thrown out as extra cost and extra weight.

ETHICAL DILEMMA

Should a risk/benefit analysis be used in situations where a defect in design or manufacturing could lead to death or seriously bodily harm.

FORDS DECISION

Although Ford had access to a new design which would decrease the possibility of the Ford Pinto from exploding, the company chose not to implement the design, which would have cost $11per car, even though it had done an analyse which is showing that the new design would result in 180less deaths.

Ever wonder what your life is worth in dollars? Perhaps $10 million? Ford has a better idea: $200,000.

Ford had gotten the federal regulators to agree to talk auto safety in terms of cost-benefit analysis. But in order to be able to argue that various safety costs were greater than their benefits. Ford needed to have a dollar value figure for the "benefit." the auto industry pressured the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to do so. And in a 1972 report the agency decided a human life was worth $200,725. Inflationary forces have recently pushed the figure up to $278,000.

Cont.
Not long after the government arrived at the $200,725-per-life figure, it surfaced, rounded off to a cleaner $200,000, in an internal Ford memorandum. This cost-benefit analysis argued that Ford should not make an $11-per-car improvement that would prevent 180 fiery deaths a year.

Human being life is any day important when compared to the profit of a company.

THANK
Amit Bharath

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