NASHVILLE, Tenn. — One year ago, Bridgestone/Firestone Inc. bowed to pressure from consumers and safety officials and agreed to recall 6.5 million tires linked to hundreds of crashes, many of them fatal.

        While that recall is essentially complete, the Nashville-based tire maker still faces a mountain of challenges — including another possible recall and a potential judgment against it in the first civil case to go to trial.

        One or both could further damage the reputation and fortune of the company, which already has had to reserve about $1 billion to replace tires and handle lawsuits resulting from the Aug. 9, 2000, recall.

        Mark Emkes, president of Bridgestone/Firestone's international tire operations, said the past year “has been a struggle.”

        “It has not been easy ... but with (CEO) John Lampe's leadership and our "Making It Right' action plan, I feel we have an excellent formula for success,” he said Thursday.

        The ad campaign that aims to restore public confidence was launched in April and features Mr. Lampe, who replaced Masatoshi Ono as chief executive in October 2000.

        The recall crisis forced a management shakeup that made Mr. Lampe the first non-Japanese in charge of the Tokyo-based Bridgestone Corp. subsidiary. It also broke up a century-old partnership between Firestone and Ford Motor Co., which manufactures the Ford Explorer, the vehicle cited in most of the rollover crashes.

        The recall, and a resulting tumble in sales, also forced the layoff of hundreds of workers and will likely lead to the closure of the company's Decatur, Ill., plant, where most of the recalled tires were made.

        But the recall has been a boon to consumer safety by focusing public attention on the issue, which pushed Congress to toughen standards for the entire automotive industry and give regulators more authority.

        “Firestone set off alarms that there were some significant loopholes that would allow safety problems to go undetected for a period of time,” said Sean Kane of Strategic Safety, a firm researching the case for lawyers representing victims of accidents involving Firestone tires.

        Joan Claybrook, president of Public Citizen, a consumer advocacy group, said that if the Firestone problem had not come to light, the powerful automotive industry lobby likely would have convinced Congress to ease regulations instead of strengthening them.

        Firestone tires have been linked to 203 U.S. traffic deaths and more than 700 injuries.

        Mr. Emkes agreed that there is a new focus in the industry on safety and said the company now has an “early warning” system in place “to allow us to identify issues before they become problems.”

        The first reports of problems with Firestone tires came as early as 1991, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. But there weren't enough complaints to cause concern.

        By the late 1990s, a pattern of problems might have been noticed if the government had been notified that Ford was replacing Firestone tires on vehicles that had been shipped to the Middle East. But no federal law required such notification.

        It wasn't until February 2000, after a report by a Houston television station about tread separation problems, that NHTSA began to get more complaints from consumers.

        The traffic safety agency opened a preliminary investigation in May and by early August had asked Bridgestone/Firestone to recall a large number of its tires.

        The tire maker agreed to a voluntary recall of a portion of those tires — all 15-inch ATX and ATXII tires made in the U.S., and the Wilderness AT tires made at its Decatur, Ill., plant.

        The next month, NHTSA issued a consumer advisory suggesting replacement of another 1.4 million tires that Bridgestone/Firestone had refused to recall.

        Within the next few weeks, NHTSA is expected to order Firestone to recall more tires, agency spokesman Rae Tyson said. He would not say how many, but estimates have ranged as high as 7 million tires.

        The company likely would fight such an order in court.

        “We see no need for further action. Our tires are safe and we would not agree to another recall,” Mr. Emkes said.

        More than 150 lawsuits against the company have been settled, but a federal jury was seated Tuesday in the case of a Texas family injured when their Ford Explorer rolled on a Mexican highway.

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