A federal judge in Atlanta has ordered to Michelin North American to pay attorneys’ fees and established that a Uniroyal Laredo Tire was “defective and unreasonably dangerous” as a sanction for nearly two years of discovery abuse. “In sum, Michelin’s bad faith conduct caused serious prejudice to the integrity of the legal process and to [...]
Tiremakers have long held the re-sale market at arms length, out of a healthy respect for the boundaries of anti-trust regulations. But a number of factors are aligning that may shift the market away from the re-sale of used tires for vehicles. The cost of selling used tires is going up – the scrap market [...]
Moneyball has opened in the movie theaters, starring Brad Pitt as the redoubtable Billy Beane, general manager of the Oakland Athletics. Beane had been a future baseball superstar who washed out after three seasons of bench-warming and bouncing between Triple-A and major league teams. He was, however, that rare individual who resisted his own PR, [...]
Human Factors researchers at the State University of North Carolina have recently concluded that consumers can’t read the date of manufacture obscured by the week and month configuration dictated by the Tire Identification Number (aka the DOT number). Researchers Jesseca Taylor and Michael Wogalter asked 83 test subjects to translate tire markings as represented by [...]
Saturday’s 15-passenger van crash that killed six and injured eight members of a Bronx church is a somber reminder that the vehicle remains the only one in the U.S. fleet today that is deadly if used as a 15-passenger van. NHTSA long-ago whiffed on recalling the unstable vehicles, instead relying on manufacturers’ good intentions and [...]
Goodyear’s G159 and a Class-A Motor Home was always a bad match. The tire was designed for urban delivery vehicles and speed-rated for only 65 mile per hour continuous use. Nonetheless, Goodyear had marketed the G159 to the RV industry for nearly a decade in the 1990s and 2000s, even though the tire design was [...]
Have you heard the one about The Pneumatic Tire? If you’re involved in tire litigation, the defense may have waved this august tome in front of a judge claiming that it is the Tire Bible handed down from on high by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, itself. And this would be somewhat true. In [...]
Just when we thought we’d stirred the pot but good, Jim Smith comes along to set us straight. In a scathing Tire Review editorial, editor Smith takes aim at industry leader, the Rubber Manufacturers Association for leading the retail side of the industry off a cliff on two important issues: tire fuel efficiency and tire [...]
SRS President Sean E. Kane hailed the California state assembly vote yesterday on AB496 Tire Disclosure Age bill, which cleared the state assembly, 48-21. The bill requires retail tire dealers to disclose the age of a tire to consumers in writing before the sale or installation of a tire. Along with the tire age, dealers [...]
The California Tire Age bill passed the state assembly yesterday 48-21 and that loud pop you may have heard was the sound of the Rubber Manufacturer’s Association’s head exploding. While it wasn’t as good as a rant as one from the Tire Industry Associations’ Roy Littlefield, the immediate response from the tiremakers trade group wasn’t [...]
