JOIE CHEN, CNN ANCHOR: A developing story. Now, this concerns the replacement program for millions of Firestone tires. Today, new questions are being raised about some -- although not all -- some of the tires used to replace the recalled Firestones. Again, this is still a developing story. CNN's Patty Davis joins us for the latest from Washington -- Patty.</s>PATTY DAVIS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Joie, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says that it is opening up a defect investigation into one of those tires that Ford is using to replace Firestones in its replacement program. That tire is the Continental General Ameri*550AS. Now, that is the tire that Ford has designed as a replacement for the Firestone Wilderness ATM Ford vehicles. Now, it has a higher separation claims rate, higher, in fact, than the Firestone tires that Ford is replacing. Now, Ford says that it's only installed about 4,300 of these specific tires so far. And so far, it says that it's done three million overall. So, not too many of them, but it's not exactly saying what it will do so far about this particular tire. The federal safety agency does say that it only found problems with this one tire. There are 11 -- there are 11 total tires that it looked at; 10 of the others, it says, it has no problems with. And I have to remind you that this investigation is in the very initial stages. This is not a recall, this is just the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration saying, we want to look closer at this tire.</s>CHEN: Yeah, but Patty, what do I do if I have these tires?</s>DAVIS: Well, at this point there is really not much you can do. There is not a recall going on. Ford hasn't said what it will do. But at a hearing last month, Form Chairman Jacques Nasser did say that if there was evidence that there was problems with any of these tires, that the company would act, so we will have to wait and see what Ford does -- Joie.</s>CHEN: All right. CNN's Patty Davis for us from our Washington bureau with the latest on that still developing story. We will continue to follow up on that as events warrant.
Federal Agency Investigates New Ford Explorer Tires