http://www.recalls.gov/

Did I have a recall.........I didnt know about.........thats a really good question. 

I guess now Ill know.

Actually, Ed Wallace just had an article about that tire recall...the whole article is at www.star-telegram.com, but here is a bit.

False Alarm but Real Harm, Lots of Blame

Remember the Ford Firestone fiasco of a few years ago? So, why didn’t we have a real conclusion to that story? Most believe that Firestone was the real culprit in this tragedy. But in fact, nothing could be further from the truth; as in many such automotive tragedies, many factors combined to cause a larger than normal number of Explorers to roll over.

I was heavily involved in this story. Tire Review magazine stated that I was the only one who went looking for the truth. I hope not, but it could be true, because, when I opened the database on these rollovers provided by the National Traffic Highway Administration, it took me only 20 minutes into it to realize that NHTSA’s programmers had put a fatally erroneous “sort” command into the database.

In fact, it was such an obvious error that old-fashioned double-checking the data would have found it. This horrendous mistake directed the database to take the vehicle from column A, the mileage from column B, the fatality from column C and the Firestone manufacturing plant from column D, and combine them — usually resulting in an accident that never happened in real life, just in NHTSA’s database. For months safety advocates were finding these “computer-generated” accidents and giving them to the media, who rushed to get such stories on air.

Particularly memorable was the family with the brand new Ford Expedition, less than 800 miles on their Wilderness tires, which separated, rolled the vehicle and killed them all. The only problem was, that accident never happened in real life.

Here’s the real story on the Ford Firestone situation. Ford gave specific instructions to Firestone on how to build that Wilderness tire for the Explorer; as I recall, it was a “C” rated tire, meaning it could travel slightly over 100 miles an hour continuously, while withstanding the heat buildup from the road. The first problem is that, to improve the Explorer’s ride, Ford shipped those tires from the factory with 26 – 27 PSI in them, instead of the 32 – 33 PSI recommended by Firestone. That had the net effect of lowering the safe continuous running speed to somewhere around 90 miles an hour. Still, none of this was a problem; the national speed limit at that time was 55mph, and even those who pushed their Explorers up to 65 were still well below the margin of safety.

Then three things happened that changed the equation. One, in 1995 we raised the national speed limit to 65. Two, the original tires on the first Explorers were reaching 5 years of age and in many cases had over 65,000 miles on them. Three, most drivers weren’t accustomed to checking the air pressure in their tires regularly — which actually wasn’t their fault. Because unlike 30 years ago, when air hoses stood next to the gas pumps at every “service station” in America, few gas stations today provide the facilities to ensure that your tires hold the proper amount of air. So, we had many aging Explorers running at increasingly faster highway speeds on older tires with falling air pressure; once the air pressure in those tires dropped to 23.4 PSI, while their drivers exceeded 70 plus mph, those tires started separating. Amazingly, all the tire companies’ Web sites carried warnings about how under-inflating tires would cause separation over time; the media was all over this event, but they apparently missed that.

It may have been a coincidence, but after I discussed the corruption of NHTSA’s database with the major networks’ news departments those stories no longer aired on TV; locally, both Fox Four and Channel 8 did pieces on my findings. One other point: General Motors also used Wilderness tires, but the specifications GM gave to Firestone were much more stringent. The media never reported that while Ford and GM both used Wilderness tires on their vehicles, the only thing those tires had in common was the name.