Why are “bad tires” on the road?

In my previous post on Chinese made tires, I clearly touched a nerve.

Now, before I proceed, I have to tell you that when I was working I had a bit of a reputation of sometimes being a bit abrupt and “in your face” with some people. So please keep that in mind as you read this post. It is definitely not my intent to offend anyone but I do sometimes get a bit frustrated.

While some felt I had provided a reasonable report on the topic when I suggested that quality is not a function of geography, others seemed to think there was some political conspiracy underway against RV owners. As proof that I was incorrect, it was suggested I would learn the truth about Chinese quality if I did a Google search or looked at some on-line forums and checked out some customer complaints.

What I did instead was to go to the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration website and did a search for tire recalls to see which brands had recalls underway. I found over 200 tire brands in the current list with probably 1000 individual tire lines involved. Included in the list were BF Goodrich (owned by Michelin), Bridgestone, Continental, Firestone (owned by Bridgestone), General (owned by Continental), Goodyear, and Uniroyal (owned by Michelin). Each of these brands have a fair number of tires on the recall list. I did not see Mission brand, which is a specific brand identified by one person who contacted me about my post.

When I looked at the list of current investigation, I found most of the same names but again no Mission brand tires. I did find a single complaint from someone claiming that three of the “Mission Radial ST” tires on their passenger car had suffered tread separations. The complaint identified the tire manufacturer as GENERAL TIRE & RUBBER CO. This “complaint” is a good example of one of the major problems NHTSA faces. That being incomplete and inaccurate reports. The three failures were claimed to have occurred in Feb 2011 but the person didn’t bother to file a complaint till Jan 2012!. Since these were on a passenger car they should not be Mission brand ST type tires.

A review of other complaints shows that a significant portion of those filing complaints were more interested in reporting problems related to having a tire fail while on the road or concern for their dogs, than providing accurate data or even the most basic information related to the tires in question.

Examples of complaints:
A Goodyear brand tire complaint summary stated “A 2011 CHEVROLET CORVETTE GRAND SPORT EQUIPPED WITH GOODYEAR EAGLE F1 TIRES LINE SIZES P325/30Z R19 (REAR), DOT NUMBER: M6XE DBDR 3010 AND P275/35/Z R18 (FRONT), DOT NUMBER M652 DBDR 2810. THE CONTACT STATED THAT THE VEHICLE HYDRO PLANED DURING A RAIN STORM, CAUSING THE VEHICLE TO DRIVE INTO ANOTHER LANE. THE VEHICLE WAS NOT TAKEN TO THE DEALER BUT THE MANUFACTURER WAS CONTACTED AND MADE AWARE OF THE FAILURE. THE VEHICLE WAS NOT REPAIRED. THE FAILURE AND CURRENT MILEAGES WERE 1,700” Do you think it possible the driver was traveling too fast for the conditions?

A Firestone brand tire DOT serial given as “DOT 522P P235/50R17” (size in this complaint listed elseware as a 23575R15) More info on DOT serials can be found here.

Here is a picture of a tire that has failed.

While I can’t be certain, as I only have the picture to go on, I am inclined to believe this may be the result of a manufacturing problem. If there are a number of tires with similar condition it may justify requiring the importer to replace the tires, maybe even for free or possibly with a different brand depending on the findings of the investigation.

HOWEVER there will never be an investigation if there are no complaints. Here is a link to the correct form.

If you have had a tire failure not due to puncture, valve or wheel failure, run low or overload then I challenge you to fill out the form with the FULL DOT serial, correct tire brand and correct tire size and Load Range information provided.

Here is the list of the information you need to collect before you start to fill out the form:

•Tire brand such as Big Round Tire Company
•Tire line such as Mud Wumper 4
•Size such as LT225/75R13 LR-D not 295-16 22 ply
•Component. Identify either Tread, belt, Sidewall or Bead
•Full DOT -- all 11 or 12 letters and numbers vehicle year, make and model
•Vehicle VIN

It does not have to be a “China Bomb”. It does not even have to be on your RV. But simply claiming you had a tire fail a couple years ago but can’t provide accurate information is of no value. I will keep an eye out and report back on just how many Mission brand tires are in the claims next week or so.

To those claiming that budget cuts prevent proper actions, don’t you think it would make it easier for regulators to get the funds they need if they had a number of accurate claims that needed investigation?

Okay, now I will get off my soap box.

How good are Chinese tires?

While this seems to be a reasonable question to those who do not believe it is possible for good quality products to be made in China, I could just as easily ask: How good are the tires made in Japan? or Brazil? or France? What about tires made in South Carolina? or Tennessee? or Nova Scotia? Etc.?

Some research indicated that Bridgestone, Michelin and Goodyear produce tires in more than 50 countries. Each of these companies has production in China. With more than 340 tire plants involved worldwide, just how reasonable is it to think that one country has cornered the market on poor quality?

Quality is a function of corporate philosophy not geography. Having worked as both a trainer and quality auditor in the tire industry, I can say from personal observation that I have never seen a situation where the poor quality in a product or process could have the root cause traced to the geographic location. I have also done detailed examination of tires made by a smaller manufacturer in China and found that they met all the performance requirements required for sale in the USA.

All tires sold for use on public highways in the US are required to be certified by the manufacturer to be capable of meeting the quality and safety requirements as published by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration which is a part of the US Department of Transportation. These requirements are very detailed and cover many test and conditions all tires must meet at a minimum. The penalty for selling a tire that does not meet these requirements is very significant. You can read the details if you are so inclined, with sections 109, 110, 119, 120, 138 and 139 being most appropriate for those interested in tires.

TO GIVE YOU AN IDEA of how seriously these quality standards are taken by a company with a real quality philosophy, I would like to give you an example. Before I retired, one of my primary duties was to investigate and determine the real reason certain tires failed to deliver the service expected by the customer. I would be asked to basically do an autopsy and issue a detailed engineering report with supporting documentation such as photos and lab data when appropriate. My report had to be sufficiently detailed and documented to be able to satisfy other engineers and technical authorities that my conclusion were accepted as the most likely reason and that no questions remained.

During one such examination, I discovered that there had been a problem during manufacturing of one specific size and type tire. I was able to trace the root cause to the use of one container of materials that had been mislabeled and incorrectly used in regular production tires. The result of this mix-up was that some of the rubber did not provide the proper level of adhesion, which resulted in part of the tire not properly curing. As part of the investigation I was able to determine that 149 tires had been made with this improper material. I located an identification mark on the subject tires which would have allowed more than 95 percent of the 149 tires to be identified and replaced. The corporate head of quality decided that we needed to be 100 percent certain that no tires remained in the hands of the public, so he ordered the entire week’s production of that size and type tire be recalled and replaced. This cost the company more than 3,500 tires to be replaced at no cost to the customers and all 3,500 tires were ordered scrapped just to be sure not a single tire with the problem remained on the highway. You may be interested to know that the tires were not manufactured in the USA and not all 149 would have been sold in the USA, but the commitment to quality was sufficient to make this decision a relatively easy one.

Now you may ask how do you find out which tire companies have this kind of commitment to quality. One thing you could do is to contact the tire manufacturer and ask if they are ISO certified to quality standards such as the older QS9000 standard or more current TS16949.

Meeting this standard is a requirement of the “Detroit Big Three” and I believe some large heavy truck manufacturers. I also believe that if a company supplies tires under these standards they are more likely to apply most of the requirements to all their production.
NOTE These Quality Standards are in addition to the DOT Regulations.

If the tire you are considering is made by a company that does not supply to “Detroit” you will have to do some other investigation. You can search for information on recalls here.

If you have a tire failure that is not attributable to overload, under-inflation, puncture or road hazard you should file a report here

If people do not file a report the DOT has no way of knowing that a tire failed to meet the requirements.