Ford Pinto Essay

In this essay, I will argue that Ford Motor Company’s business behavior was unethical as demonstrated in the Ford Pinto Case. Ford did not reveal all the facts to consumers about a harmful gas tank design in the Ford Pinto. They tried to justify their decision to sell an unsafe car by using a Cost-Benefit Analysis which determined it was cheaper to sell the cars without changing to a safer gas tank. The price of not fixing the gas tanks is human injuries and fatalities. By choosing not to make the Pinto a safer vehicle Ford placed a price on the head of every consumer. Ford’s primary concern was to maximize profits. Ford had a duty and ethical responsibility to customers to

Ford executives were under a great deal of pressure to produce a smaller, more gas efficient automobile. Japanese and German automobile sales were rapidly increasing. These competitive forces drove Ford’s executive team to respond by rushing the design process of the Ford Pinto. By 1973, the Pinto was well into production when engineers discovered a flaw in the gas tank, which was located just under the rear bumper. They discovered that if the vehicle suffered a rear-end collision over 20 mph, the gas tank could break and spill gasoline into the passenger compartment, potentially resulting in a fire. The remedy for the flaw was a part that cost $11.00 per vehicle. Executives at Ford knew the company had followed all safety standards and regulations. At that time, automobile safety standards only needed gas tanks to withstand a collision under 20 mph. An internal cost-benefit analysis revealed the costs would be substantially higher to fix the design flaw that the costs associated with any potential damages due to collisions and loss of life. The public remained unaware until Mother Jones journalist, Mark Dowie broke the story in 1977. Fueled by the media, what followed was a frenzy of public outcry and court trials.

The Elkhart County Grand Jury took up the matter and filed a charge of criminal homicide against Ford, the Automobile American Corporation that designed the Pinto car models. According to Elkhart County Grand prosecutor, Michael A. Cosentino, Ford was guilty of reckless homicide, because the company committed a conscious, plain, and unjustifiable neglect of harm that positioned the gas tank in the rear end of the car without proven protection. Besides, Ford engaged in negligence and substantial deviation from the acceptable standards of conduct. The major focus of the case entailed the expanding and assessment of acceptable standards the company violated in the process of manufacture of Pinto cars.

In the history of the Ford Pinto of the 1970’s, the case against Ford for their ethical behavior in letting a car be released to the public knowing that there was failure with the gas tank if hit from

It is unclear as to exactly how many were actually killed by the Ford Pinto explosive fuel tank but in 1980 the State of Indiana versus Ford Motor Company case made history (Becker, Jipson, & Bruce, 2012). The methods Ford used in deciding to put the Pinto into circulation were unorthodox to anything from historical reference. The most controversial was the cost benefit analysis done by Ford where the company basically put a price tag on a life in comparison to fixing the fuel tank issue in the Pinto (Trevino & Nelson,

I agree with the author in saying that Ford is a case of corporate malpractice in the auto industry. I also agree with the author in saying that Ford was unethical. In the case of, State of Indiana v. Ford Motor Co., Ford was found not guilty, but only because the other driver was actually at fault in the accident. In this particular case, they went after Ford because the cars were a deathtrap due

In this paper, I will be dissecting and analyzing different viewpoints and theories related to the Ford Pinto incident in the 1970’s. First, I will validate why the stakeholder theory is the best theory to use when making business decisions, and why the liability should fall on the people regulating the market interactions, not the producer of the products. Second, I will come from a different angle and analyze the objections that some people may have about the Stakeholder theory. Last, I will analyze the ethics and consequences of taking a different course of action as the CEO of Ford. By the end of this paper, you should have an in depth understanding of why the decision to go ahead with the original Ford design was correct, and why the

The first was to fix the issue at a cost of approximately eighteen dollars in parts per vehicle. In doing the repair, Ford would have significantly increased the safety of the vehicle. The second option was for Ford to ignore the problem based on a cost analysis, finding that it would be cheaper to leave Pinto as is and pay out lawsuit settlements in the event the vehicles caught fire due to collision. It is clear that the parties involved in these actions were Ford Motor Company and the consumers that purchased the Ford Pinto. The next step is to determine how these actions affect the happiness of those

They had no doubt that the car would sale, especially with previous customers who are big ford fans. After the Ford Pinto came out the (NHTSA) National Highway Traffic Safety Administration came out with more hard regulations for post-crash survivability as well as strengthened requirement as well as being able to withstand a 20mph rear end impact without releasing fuel and causing major rollovers. Because these regulations happed after the ford Pinto was released they were not required to observe the new standards (NHTSA) had come out

In other words, humans have equal dignity and should never be deceived, manipulated or exploited for any purpose. There can never be a moral cost-benefit analysis that allows corporate leaders and their corporations to unjustly exploit or endanger employees, customers and local communities exclusively as means to corporate profit or in the case of Ford situation as a means to save expending resourced to remedy a defective product or not risking corporate profits and reputation by recalling a potentially dangerous product. In addition, it is that trading off lives for any amount of money is wrong, because doing so fails to respect the essential worth of every human life. Is seems unethical to determine that people should be allowed to die or be seriously injured because it would cost too much to prevent it. In Kant’s will recognize and endorse that sentiment, which human beings have dignity and not mere price which also unconditionally attribute a worth to persons that cannot be quantified and is not subject to

The cases involving the explosion of Ford Pinto's due to a defective fuel system design led to the debate of many issues, most centering around the use by Ford of a cost-benefit analysis and the ethics surrounding its decision not to upgrade the fuel system based on this analysis.

A car traveling behind the Pinto was able to swerve around the Pinto but the driver of a 1962 Ford Galaxie was unable to avoid the collusion with the Ford Pinto.

The Ford Pinto of the 1970’s was one of these cars that Ford would probably prefer to forget. The Pinto is blamed, along with other low quality cars of this era, for Americans’ lost confidence and loyalty to U.S. car companies (Newman, 2008). The Pinto’s backend would catch fire if they were rear-ended (Levin, 2015). It was discovered Ford knew about the problem and did nothing (Levin, 2015). Three teenagers died in one of these types of crashes (Levin, 2015). In the 1980’s, the Bronco II created terrible public opinion with 800 lawsuits due to the cars rolling over (Greenwald, 2001). In 2000, just a year after the “Goodbye/Hello” commercial, SUV Ford Explorers were also seen as dangerous after the deaths of 100 passengers (Levin, 2015). Even though Firestone tires were found to be faulty for this type of vehicle, Ford Explorers had the same rollover issue as the Bronco II (Greenwald, 2001). The issue created a bad opinion of this particular vehicle but not for the Ford company as a whole (Gallup, 2002). The 2001 Gallup Poll found a 51% unfavorable opinion of the Ford Explorer (Gallup, 2002, p.214) but a 57% favorable opinion of Ford Motor Company

The beginning of the General Motors recall crisis was the alleged failure by the company to recall its faulty cars on time, despite having known about the ignition switch problem, which persisted over a decade. The aforementioned design flaw in over a million vehicles, which caused hundreds of fatalities, was well known by the company’s management, before the decision to recall the faulty vehicles. Ethical issues relate to the recall crisis concern GM’s favoring cover-up over legal considerations on customer safety. Concisely, the company concealed defects from the top management, dealers, and the public, while the car users crashed the cars and died from problems that General Motors could have fixed. This paper will focus on the issues surrounding the General Motors Recall Crisis.

I think Pinto case raised some serious issue of abusing human rights and not behaving ethically in the world of business. Any business/service should never ever put a value on human life and not take consideration of a known deadly danger. Ford had an option as well as the solution to design the car in a way that prevented cars from exploding; however they refused to implement it.   They thought that it was cost effective not to fix dangerous condition than to spend the money to save people in spite of the fact that the only added cost was $ 11 per vehicle.