Recalled Tires May Be A "Time Bomb" On Your Car

Are you driving on a recalled tire? You may not know it. Even more disturbing -- the experts may not know it either.

Some call it a flaw in the U.S. recall system. One woman's life was changed forever... when she took a ride on a tire that had been recalled years earlier -- and no one told her.

Carolyn Thorne says she had no idea she was driving a rolling "time bomb" when a tire on her suv suddenly ripped apart, triggering a rollover at 65 miles an hour. "All I heard was a popping sound, and the next thing I knew, I am flipping," she said

The accident left Thorne partially paralyzed. She won multi-million dollar legal settlements with the tire maker and dealers that cared for the car.

Thorne's story hightlights a disturbing reality. The tire that blew out on her car should not have been on the road at all, it had been recalled 2 years before the rollover.

Millions of recalled tires just like it have not been returned and are still on the road today.

"It's very easy to have recalled tires on your car and not even know it." Sean Kane works as an auto safety consultant who has studied the tire recall process, and was also an un-paid consultant on Thorne's case. He says only 20 percent of all recalled tires are actually found. He says even tire professionals have trouble determining which tires are recalled. "The reason we don't know where they are is because there is no tracking mechanism or identification system that works. The tire recall system is just clearly broken," Kane said.

The National Highway Transportation Safety Administration is the federal agency that oversees tire recalls. A spokesman says the agency agrees that tire return rates are too low and more needs to be done to get recalled tires off the road, but did not say what should be done.

Kane says finding recalled tracking numbers on tires is difficult and retailers don't have a database to make sure people are driving safe tires.

That was a shock to Carolyn Thorne, who believed tire mechanics would spot the danger. "I trusted my life in the hand of so-called experts to make sure nothing like this would happen to me. But it did, the system failed."

So while the recall system may be "broken", there is still information out there. The U.S. government keeps a database of all car equipment that has been recalled, including tires. You just have to find it yourself.

Terry Wood - ABC4.com

You can find recalls by visit www.lemonlaws.info/Recall-Bulletin.aspx

US, China To Share More Auto Safety Info After Tire Recall

WASHINGTON: The US government has agreed with China to improve information-sharing on auto safety in the aftermath of a recall of thousands of defective Chinese-made tires over the last several months. The ‘memorandum of understanding’ signed Wednesday by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and China’s National Reform and Development Commission is intended to “strengthen cooperation and communication” on several motor vehicle regulation and safety issues. In June, NHTSA ordered a US importer, Foreign Tire Sales, to recall as many as 4,50,000 tires it had bought from Hangzhou Zhongce Rubber.

The importer initially said it did not have the financial resources to conduct a full recall, then announced in August that it would recall 2,55,000 tyres.

The recall involved steel-belted radial replacement tires for pickup trucks, vans and sport utility vehicles sold in the United States from early 2004 through mid-2006. The tires were recalled because they lacked a safety feature that prevents tread separation.

NHTSA Administrator Nicole Nason said, “If we see a situation in the future where we need information from a Chinese manufacturer like we had with FTS, we can go straight to the Chinese government and ask them to reach out to the manufacturer.” Nason said given the interest expressed by Chinese automakers to sell vehicles in the United States in the future, “We think it’s valuable to have this agreement in place now.” The agreement outlines cooperation between the two countries on developing technical regulations, issuing consumer information, enforcing defects that compromise safety and reviewing the safety attributes of new vehicles.

Chinese auto safety officials were meeting with NHTSA staff this week to share information on regulations involving fuel economy, crash testing and the regulation of tires and vehicles. The agreement comes amid questions about the quality of Chinese toys, food and other products after a string of product recalls and import bans in recent months.

The Economic Times Report

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