Ford and other manufactures began to work with the NHTS to build tests that could more closely simulate real world situations. The standard was changed to a 25 mph moving barrier test. Ford had been testing the Pinto to this new standard before it became official. In these tests, the Pinto still performed at an acceptable level, but concerns began to appear within the engineering department of Ford. Several options where considered to address the marginal performance of the Pinto in rear-end impact test, but each was dismissed as either too expensive, placing the vehicle outside of its" original specifications or not technically capable of solving the problems. .
A series of accidents continued to shed more unfavorable light on the Pinto and gas leakage in rear-end impacts. Ford continually tried to show that the Pinto was performing equally to other vehicles on the road in the "fires related to rear-end impact" classification, but their efforts failed. Ford lost a case where they where fined $125 million dollars in punitive damages. This was later reduced to $3 million. With all of their efforts, Ford could not save the Pinto and it was discontinued in 1980.
Caring Lens.
In using this lens to evaluate the ethical issues of this case we must address the universal morals of the society when the dealing with those who rely on us. Ford must look at their customers and how they treated them. Ford has two different groups that they must use caring ethics with. First is the generic customer, and second is the group of individuals that purchased the Pinto. In regards to the generic customer, Fords caring ethic requires the company to offer products that the customers want. In this case, it was the early 1970's and gas prices began to rise. A second market shift was the introduction of sub-compact cars from Japan and Europe. Ford reacted to these changes, planned and produced a sub-compact car of their own.
