There are well over three million of them out there on the nation's highways. Ford explores with most every explorer driver wondering what will happen if the tread separates or if there's a blowout. There have been charges. The explorer is unstable and likely to roll over if a tire fails. A wee at car and driver have decided to find out what happens using this 1994 explorer for a series of tire failure tests. The test explorer is a V6 Ford or with four wheel drive and the original design twin i-beam front suspension. It's wearing new good year Wranglers because the firestones that were on it had just been recalled before Chabba bought it off an independent dealer's car lot. It is the firestone accidents that have suggested this test. What we didn't understand was just because there have been a lot of these tire failures, why have there been so many serious accidents and with over a hundred people dying in there. And that's what we wanted to explore because we didn't really understand why a blowout leads to a fatal accident. And because there might be a rollover, our test explorer has been equipped with a full roll cage and a five point racing harness. But otherwise there are no changes. This has whatever shocks it had in it when we bought it. We haven't gone over the suspension, we haven't gone over the brakes. It's basically a relatively sound explorer. If a sound as an explorer is going to be with 137,000 miles on it. But there's absolutely nothing special that was done here to prepare this machine for this test. Our test gear is a special wheel for the left rear with three one-inch hoses connected to a center diaphragm with a swivel connector to an air hose. In the back, a 20 gallon air tank, which is the tire, the 26 psi, through an electric valve and on through the green air hose. The valve is operated by a model airplane radio control servo. I push this toggle to the right and then it'll go. Simulating a total blowout and to some extent surprising our driver, Tech Editor Larry Webster. OK Larry, good luck. Thank you. We've installed two onboard cameras, one on the tire and one that will record what Larry is doing to control the vehicle. We're using mile and dragway as the test site, using the quarter mile to get up the speed before chubba will dump the air in the shutdown area. And we're starting at 30 miles per hour with no drama. Now 40 miles per hour. As you can see, I don't have to move this steering wheel at all, carefully apply the brake, and the car goes straight ahead. And the same is true in the next run, getting closer to freeway speeds at 50 miles per hour. With the onboard air tank re-inflating the tire after each run, Larry can keep raising the speed, looking for a handling problem, but there isn't one yet. It just wiggle to hair, but otherwise all that happens is the back end sits down. It still tracks perfectly straight, and then you just get off the gas and slowly put the brakes on and it comes to a stop. And it goes in a straight line, doesn't pull it all to either side. I haven't felt the pull yet. Really? Yeah, so so far it's been very easy. Amazing. Yeah. OK, well let's go back, fill it up with air and try it. Next one is 60. That's right, OK. OK. But once again, there is no drama and no suggestion the explorer might roll over. Absolutely nothing happened. Arrow straight from this point of view. Now it's 70 miles per hour with our somewhat tired explorer needing all of the strip to get up to speed. First, with no braking, exactly what you should do in a high speed blow-off. And it's no problem. In fact, Larry's doing so little on board. This run at 70 will be with no hands. Here we go. Seven miles an hour, no hands. It's on our hands. On the brakes, pull a little too left on the brakes. I'm going to correct for that. And that's it. No problem. Come to a stop easy. You don't have to be Michael Andredi here. Larry says the car just goes perfectly straight ahead on its own. And so long as you don't do something to upset the car, it takes care of itself. And that's what we're seeing. But what if you do upset the car? You hear the tire blow, panic, and jam on the brakes. Well, here's the answer. You can see it wagged just a little bit, but nothing that I couldn't control. I could see it surprising someone. If they're not paying attention and then all of a sudden the tire goes flat, they panic, they jump on the brakes, and they're not ready to catch that. I could see it being a potential problem. But if you're doing what you're supposed to do in a blow-out, get out of the gas and gently apply the brakes, there's no problem. And as far as the charges that the explorer is unstable, we've seen just the opposite. Whatever the cause is of a blow-out, an explorer handles a blow-out, at least the left-viewer blow-out, amazingly well. It's perfectly stable. It doesn't do anything unexpected. It doesn't do anything unusual. Basically, it doesn't do anything at all other than plow-on straight ahead, which I think is exactly what anyone would want to be able to do when it has a blow-out.