Pinto Car Had Big Problems

Added: 02/20/2006

The Ford pinto car is defiantly a car that Ford wants to forget. Possibly the worst car in Ford’s long history. Ford does have a bad name amongst a lot of people. The reason for this bad name is partly down to the Ford pinto car. It caused a lot of problems when it was released and it had to be withdrawn from production. After all when you make a car that has problems even if you do remake it you will not be able to sell them.

The ford pinto car was very popular throughout the 1970’s. The pinto car combined good looks and styling with a comfortable interior. This car was a relatively small design that fit into the compact or subcompact category. The pinto car was first produced in 1971 and its run lasted about ten years with the last models coming off of the production line in 1980. That is a relatively long shelf life for a car in the 1970’s. The consumer took immediate notice of this car when it first rolled into dealerships in the early 70’s. The pinto car was initially praised by the consumer and the auto critics alike for its unibody construction which made the car fit together very nicely. This unibody construction help to make the pinto car one of the toughest and most reliable on the road. It was a huge hit at the beginning of its life, and Ford was making a killing selling this good looking ride. The consumer also loved the fact that the car was rear wheel drive and could be had in either an automatic or manual transmission. But all was not good in the world of the pinto car.

The pinto car was cited for several safety problems in the first few years of production. A couple of highly regarded auto magazines found issues with the suspension as well as the drum brakes which came standard on the pinto car. But ford shrugged off this criticism, and could get away with these problems as the auto critics were busy praising the engine that came standard in the ford pinto car. It was much more efficient that its competitors engines, there fore making it the obvious choice in the compact car category.

Then came the bigger safety issues in the mid to late 70’s. The ford pinto car was cited for the design of a faulty fuel tank. It was found that during rear end collisions the fuel tank in this car would sometimes become very easily damaged, causing the tank to explode and start fire to the entire car. Obvious this was a very big safety concern among everyone. It was found that the lack of a solid rear bumper was letting the fuel tank become damaged during rear end collisions. To make this problem worse, it was found that ford was aware of this flaw in the fuel tank and bumper design but neglected to do anything about it. From there on out it seemed like a new ford pinto case came about every date. A ford pinto case against ford could cost them thousand of dollars each time they had to go to court. The ford pinto case fad cost ford millions of dollars, along with their credibility.

It took ford many years to overcome these allegations and law suits. The ford pinto car is still talked about to this day as a reminder of how important car safety really is. I don’t think any would recommend this car as a good buy! When you buy a car safety is a prime reason for the purchase. But when you see all the headlines about how the car can catch fire in a rear end collision it will not tempt you to buy it. The Ford pinto was obviously made redundant some 20 years ago. But you can be sure that the people that were unlucky enough to buy one of these cars will not buy from Ford again. It can take years to build up your creditability but just one small mistake can ruin all those years of hard work.

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