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Ford Pinto Case Solution

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Submitted By gregson1
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Ford Pinto Case Solution

The Ford Pinto was a disaster waiting to happen. The damage that the Lee Iacocca and Ford executives allow to happen was not only tragic but they were preventable. Because of Lee Iacoccas hurry and pressure of the creation of the auto was high, and this lead to the unfortunate dilemma. The Ford Pinto study has shown that Iacocca put to high of a demand on the team that was responsible for the creation of the Pinto.

Fist the Pinto should never gone into production before some very important tests were completed, one of which was a complete crash study. Its known that Ford engineers knew that rear collision tests needed to be done but ignored until after the auto was put in to production. This one test could have saved hundreds of lives.

Solution to dilemma

In the late 1960s, the standard time to spend in development of a car was roughly 4 years. The engineers of the pinto only had 2. There would have been more testing for the safety of the passengers through a when it came to the placement of the gas tank or the bumper. Once the Testing was done the engineers would have known that with “A rear-end collision of about twenty-eight miles per hour or more would crush the car's rear end, driving the fuel tank against the differential housing and causing it to split and the filler pipe to break loose” thus resulting in fatal accidents. Because of the results of the tests a baffle would have been placed between the gas tanks for protection against such accidents.

Finally the demand of Iacoccas under 2000 pounds and sell under $2000 was a large demand, which lead to the cutting of corners when it came to safety. This was an unreachable goal and never should have been made.

References

Ford Pinto Case. (2005). Encyclopedia of Science, Technology and Ethics, (), .

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