The public perception is that the companies are more interested in shunting blame than they are in the fact that their products, in combination, killed people. Tragedies need not destroy brands. But the company's handling of the situation was expert, where Ford and Firestone reacted grudgingly in the face of potential danger to their customers. The company responded to suspicion of contamination by quickly pullings its products off shelves and gave every indication that it was doing everything in its power to find the source of the bacteria. Once again, decisive action by the company in time of crisis essentially saved it from massive collateral damage and now the company seems fully recovered .
Appearances suggest the latter.
The cost to Firestone and Ford of helping the public forget this episode will be massive, either in the form of reduced unit sales, big price discounts, or both. That they haven't put up a unified front to address the issue is a miscalculation writ large. In the end, even if conclusive scientific evidence shows one company or the other to be at fault, the public may not make the same differentiation. Let he who is without funk cast the first stone. At time of publication Bill Mann held none of the stocks mentioned in this article.