Goodyear: a silenced scandal that has caused 158 traffic accidents in Spain

Paris[Following the announcement of the 'Salvados' documentary 'The Goodyear Case', scheduled for this Sunday, October 3, we are republishing this article on the consequences of the Goodyear scandal in Spain, originally published in ARA on April 21, 2024]

Goodyear, the American tire manufacturer, is facing a massive scandal in Europe that has gone surprisingly unnoticed in Spain, to the point of being hard to believe: until the report you are reading today, nothing had ever been published in Spain about this case. An extensive investigation of Le Monde, a newspaper that has had access to confidential documents from the multinational thanks to an anonymous informant, reveals that for more than a decade, Goodyear has hidden a manufacturing defect in two tire models intended for heavy-duty vehicles that has caused hundreds of fatal accidents in various European countries. The world's third-largest tire manufacturer has maneuvered to prevent it from coming to light.

According to internal Goodyear documents that the French newspaper has been able to see, in Spain the defective tires, manufactured at the multinational's plant in Luxembourg, were linked to at least 158 truck accidents up to 2017. This is not an "exhaustive" document and does not provide the most relevant data. France, Le Monde accurately documents several fatal accidents. The total figure is significantly lower than the Spanish figure: 81 truck accidents between 2013 and 2016.

The journalistic investigation, written by Gérard Davet and Fabrice Lhomme, describes how Goodyear has tried for years to cover up the scandal of models, even scandalous models, even the Marathon LHS II and LHS II+, and of accidents related to a manufacturing defect that causes the wheels to burst while the truck is moving. "The multinational's top management was not unaware that the Marathon II and LHS II were involved in numerous road tragedies," it states, forcefully, Le Monde.

Compensation and silence

When the US company was alerted by its European subsidiaries about the tire problem after observing accidents related to the wheels, it decided not to launch an alert to withdraw them from the market (in the EU this is done through Rapex, the European alert system for dangerous products) and opted to pay large compensations that included the defective wheels that had been pointed out as the cause of the accident, according to the complaint. Le Monde.

The first traffic accidents involving these tires occurred in 2011. Most of them resulted in fatalities and serious injuries because the truck tire often burst, causing the driver to lose control and crash into other vehicles. Since then, accidents have multiplied in Europe, but at first no one connected the two. According to the story of Le MondeGoodyear Spain was the first to notice the problem in 2013 and issued an alert to its US headquarters in Akron, Ohio. The subsidiary internally reported a series of accidents related to Marathon tires.

The multinational chose to address the problem secretly and did not report the tire defect to the European authorities, even though it was legally required to do so. Goodyear launched the Alpha program, dubbed—not without a certain cynicism—as the "customer satisfaction program." This program consisted of a commitment by the company to contact all customers who had purchased defective tires and offer them a free replacement for new ones. However, the company consistently avoided warning its customers that the tires posed a safety hazard.

Goodyear—according to the journalistic investigation—notified the Spanish Ministry of Industry of the launch of the Alpha program through a letter in October 2013. It even informed the ministry, then headed by the popular José Manuel Soria, that "a limited number" of tires had been involved in "incidents." "The purpose of this letter is to inform you about the customer satisfaction program that Goodyear Dunlop Tires Spain SA is implementing," states the letter, which has been reviewed. Le Monde.

ARA has contacted the Ministry of Industry, now headed by Socialist Jordi Hereu, to confirm the French newspaper's information, but sources at the ministry say they are unaware of the case and have no record of the letter. "After so many years, we have found no clues in this regard," the ministry sources say.

Contacted by this newspaper, Goodyear Spain declined to confirm or deny the information. Le Monde or offer any other details. The company simply explains that it launched a "replacement program" for truck tires 10 years ago and points out that "none of the newer product lines has been subject to this replacement program."

The "particular conditions" of Spain

Le Monde Goodyear also reported the situation to the Luxembourg authorities in October 2013. In this case, a series of meetings followed in which the American company attributed the problems with the exploding tires to the "particular conditions" in Spain, referring to the high temperatures. "There is no reason to proceed with a Rapex procedure for Spain or for all European territories," the tire company assured the Luxembourg authorities.

Despite Goodyear's attempts to prevent anyone from linking accidents to its tires, two of the main truck manufacturers, MAN and Scania (both part of the Volkswagen Group), began to notice that many truck accidents in different European countries had the two tire and van models in common. In 2014, Goodyear decided to launch a Europe-wide customer satisfaction program with the aim of "minimizing the impact on the brand's reputation."

For years, the tire manufacturer's obsession was to keep quiet about the problem to avoid a scandal. The priority was to contain the crisis. But the call to change truck wheels was not as successful as expected, and the percentage of trucks that went to the workshop to change their tires was low, barely 50%, months after the call.

Truck manufacturers on the attack

In France, MAN and Scania pressured Goodyear to admit the problem and decided to issue a safety alert to customers. In the midst of legal proceedings for a traffic accident involving one of its trucks that resulted in one death and two injuries—a pregnant woman and her 9-year-old daughter—MAN France commissioned its insurer in 2014 to prepare a technical report on the suspect tires. The expert who signed the document believed the only explanation for the accident, in which the truck punctured a wheel on a Marathon model, was that the tire was defective. It was the first expert report to clearly affirm what Goodyear denied. Later, in other lawsuits involving accidents in France, other experts would reach the same conclusion.

ARA has also contacted MAN's Spanish subsidiary and official Scania workshops in Spain to learn about their response to the tire safety issue, but has not received a response. "You're just bringing me up to date," one of the truck manufacturers replies. "I have no information on this," says a Spanish workshop official for the Swedish brand Scania. Have they really never heard of the matter, when, in France, Scania and MAN have fought for years to get Goodyear to acknowledge its responsibility? Or do they prefer to remain silent so as not to publicly contribute to the scandal?

According to Le MondeIn France, the American multinational has paid large sums of money to victims of accidents involving defective tires, demonstrating its willingness to do anything to keep the matter from becoming public or to prevent an accident from going to court. "This is Goodyear's usual method: never admitting the slightest error but instead granting a settlement when the victims are too insistent," the report states.

In Spain, it is achieving its goal of keeping the matter secret. It's disconcerting, but no one is talking about it. The Ministry of Industry claims it knows nothing. Nor do truck manufacturers. The press hasn't covered it. However, the French report provides a fact that reveals that in Spain there are accident victims or transport companies that have pointed to Goodyear as responsible: according to a document prepared by Grégory Boucharlat, the American multinational's commercial vice president in Europe, Goodyear spent €3.38 million on compensation.

The perseverance of Sophie Rollet

The American giant's strategy of silencing the tire safety issue did not count on the tenacity of a French woman, Sophie Rollet. The report by Le Monde is, above all, the story of Rollet, a former kindergarten teacher from Geney, a village of 150 inhabitants located in Burgundy. The Goodyear scandal would probably never have come to light were it not for her and her perseverance. The incredible story of this 50-year-old mother of three is what led the two journalists who wrote this article to investigate the case and gave them access to the multinational's confidential and highly sensitive information.

Sophie Rollet lost her husband almost 10 years ago in a traffic accident. It was the summer of 2014, and the man, a truck driver, was returning home with his trailer on the A-36 when another truck traveling in the opposite direction blew a tire, lost control, and collided head-on with her truck. Both drivers died. Rollet always suspected that the tire that flew through the air had something wrong with it. It was a Goodyear Marathon LHS II.

When Jean-Paul Rollet died on the road, Goodyear had long been aware of the Marathon LHS tire problem and had already launched a tire exchange program to replace defective tires across Europe, but Sophie Rollet was unaware of it. Nothing had ever been reported in the press, and the American multinational handled the crisis with the utmost discretion. She alone, using her computer, investigated similar accidents for years. She knocked on many doors without success. The court closed the case involving her husband's death, but she did not give up. "Generally, people here haven't understood my efforts. The police themselves told me: 'Give up that search, think of your children,'" she explains now.

Manufacturing defect

In 2016, she managed to reopen the case, coinciding with other truck accidents that also ended up in court. They all had the Goodyear tire model in common. In 2019, the judicial investigation commissioned a report that concluded there was a "manufacturing defect" in the tires. However, most cases were dismissed due to a lack of evidence proving a connection to the accident. Rollet was about to throw in the towel, but she already knew the experts were agreeing and that her husband's case wasn't unique.

Le Monde In July 2020, she dedicated a page to her fight in a report that would be decisive. "Faced with Goodyear, Sophie Rollet alone against everyone." It was David against Goliath. A French widow against an American giant. "Since Jean-Paul's death, how many times have I told myself I was fighting a losing battle?" Rollet asked herself.

The report caught the attention of directors Sylvie Gilman and Thierry de Lestrade, who would end up making a documentary for the Arte channel to tell Sophie Rollet's story. It aired in July 2023. Three months later, an anonymous informant contacted the directors and gave them information about the Goodyear case on a USB stick, which they sent to the two journalists at Le Monde.

Gérard Davet and Fabrice Lhomme interviewed the informant. "The Arte documentary left its mark on this person, especially since he knew everything about the affair. This source immediately decided to react, driven by public interest and a certain sense of justice. He was not seeking any financial gain; his credibility and competence in this field seem indisputable," the two journalists write.

A second anonymous witness also sent them valuable information with another USB stick. The documents of both informants contain a wealth of confidential information that turned out to be key because Le Monde publish the report on Goodyear. Journalists hope the information will help advance the legal proceedings against the American multinational.

But questions remain. The main one is knowing what impact the Goodyear cover-up had on human lives in Catalonia and Spain. Also, knowing how a scandal of this magnitude was able to remain hidden in Spain until well into 2024.