Wheel Rim problems of the 2000 Mercury Cougar

We were driving down the road and all of a sudden we had a flat tire. We thought the tire had blown out, but when we changed the tire, we found that the rim had burst open and the tire was perfectly fine. Thank god the car did not flip. If it had, no one would have known what happened. We called the Ford company and they told us they would not incur any cost for their clearly defective product. After all the problems they have caused the public with their defective products, you would think they would have at least had a dealership look at the rim to try and find out what happened. But apparently they do not care about their products unless someone gets killed like in the case with their defective tires. I really feel that if they had taken the complaints serious about the tire situation, no one would have lost their life. If one customer complains, and you care about your product, I would think the company would want to know why their product was defective in the first place. I truly hope the Ford company gets what is due them. As the old slogan says; Ford really does mean found on the road dead.