Fiat Trial Over Child’s Fiery Death Seen Renewing Recall Push
Source: Bloomberg
by Erik LarsonMargaret Cronin Fisk
(Bloomberg) -- A trial in a south Georgia town is renewing demand for a massive recall of older Jeep models whose fuel tanks lawyers argue are prone to catch fire in accidents.
Safety advocates say the case may put Fiat Chrysler at risk of a scandal on a par with GM’s faulty ignition switches.
Jurors are poised to view grisly evidence of the death of 4-year-old Remington Walden in the back seat of a 1999 Jeep Grand Cherokee in June 2012. The SUV erupted in flames after being rear-ended at an intersection as his aunt drove him to a tennis lesson.
The family’s lawyers say the boy died screaming in a fire so intense his chest fused to the Jeep’s door. They said a medical examiner determined the child, strapped to a booster seat, was probably alive in the flames for as long as a minute, with the position of his body showing he died struggling to get out.
FULL story at link.
A 1999 Grand Cherokee in flames after being struck in the rear by a pickup truck.
Source: U.S. Department of Transportation via Bloomberg
Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-03-24/fiat-trial-over-child-s-fiery-death-seen-renewing-recall-push
The Top Automotive Engineering Failures: The Ford Pinto Fuel Tanks: http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/a6700/top-automotive-engineering-failures-ford-pinto-fuel-tanks/
MAY 20, 2011 @ 8:00 AM
As part of our automotive-engineering-failures series, Popular Mechanics is rounding up the most dismal design flaws in automotive history. Today: the Ford Pinto fuel tanks. There's a reason the Pinto was one of our 10 cars that deserved to fail. Ford neglected to add reinforcements to protect the easily ruptured fuel tank, endangering drivers while earning the Pinto a reputation for catching fire that persists today. The automaker's public relations black eye lasted for years.
Unless you drive an electric vehicle, on a day-to-day basis there's a container filled with a highly volatile liquid stashed away somewhere in your car. While the kind of car explosions displayed by Hollywood are quite rare, fuel tanks do pose a hazard. And arguably the most dangerous fuel tank of all time was the rear-mounted vessel installed on the 1971 through 1976 Ford Pinto. It's possibly the best example of what happens when poor engineering meets corporate negligence.
The tale of the Pinto is burned deep into American pop culture at this point: Company builds car, car has terrible problem, company ignores it, people die. It's a bit more complicated than that, though. The genesis of the Ford Pinto came sometime in 1968, when Ford's then-president Lee Iaccoca decided that his company would not sit idly by as new Japanese competitors dominated the small-car segment. He pushed the board to greenlight the Pinto program, and by August 1968 the program was underway. It would have aggressive targets: no more than 2000 pounds, not a penny over $2000 and a delivery deadline of just 25 months, a record at the time and still impressive today.
Everything was going well until, deep into the development cycle, a problem was discovered in the fuel tank design. In low-speed rear-end crash testing, the fuel tank, positioned behind the rear axle and in front of the rear bumper, exhibited several flaws. Upon impact, the filler neck would tear away from the sheet-metal tank and spill fuel beneath the car. The tank was also easily punctured by bolts protruding from the differential and nearby brackets. One report later described the entire contents of a tank leaking out in less than a minute after an accident. These problems combined to create a serious risk of fire, so engineering teams proposed solutions. One was to borrow a design Ford already used in its Capri, a tank that sat above the axle and out of the way. Another alternative was installing tank shields to prevent punctures, and reinforcements around the filler to prevent tearing.
FULL story at link.
= new reply since forum marked as read
Read that case in my first year law school torts class. The guy sitting next to me owned a Pinto. I still remember his look of horror, and IIRC he unloaded the thing pretty quickly.
This custom shop is around the corner from my house 
(The guy that owns it is the buddy of Richard Rawlings Fast & Loud dude)
?t=1409679861
What a horrible way to die. 
