Bob Ulrich delivered a bouquet of compliments to Sean Kane in Modern Tire Dealer’s latest edition. Entitled, “Sean Kane’s Passion Trump’s the Industry’s Inaction,” Ulrich opines that Kane has been an amiable and effective, if misguided, advocate for tire aging. It opens thus: “I like Sean Kane. Over the phone he comes across as a [...]

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Tire retailers are in the midst of an oh-my-gosh-the-sky-is-falling meltdown over a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration tire maintenance public education program. Specifically, the retail arm of the tire industry is quivering over the possibility that groups outside of the industry would be tapped to run it.

SACRAMENTO, CA – One of the nation’s first laws to require tire dealers to disclose the age of each tire prior to sale or installation cleared an important hurdle Tuesday, when the California state legislature’s Assembly Business and Professions committee passed it by a vote of 6 to 4.

Reprinted from The Safety Record, V5, I6; Nov/Dec. 2008 OXFORD, NC-One year after a fatal crash and seven months after the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration launched a defect investigation into 30 million Chinese-manufactured tire valve stems that could crack prematurely, Dill Air Control Products has finally announced a recall.

A 42-year-old Missouri man purchased a go-cart from the local farm supply store for his kids. With less than four hours on the rugged-looking machine, he and a friend were found dead, the machine overturned with a fractured front suspension where a critical weld failed. The defect appears to be just another one of a [...]

Reprinted from The Safety Record, V5, I5 Washington, D.C. – Less than two weeks after Safety Research & Strategies requested the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to open a defect investigation into Chinese tire valve stems used as OEM equipment in some Ford vehicles, the Office of Defects Investigation has complied. On September 25, SRS [...]

OXFORD, NORTH CAROLINA — The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is investigating Chinese-made replacement tire valve stems sold by Dill Air Controls for potential defects, while an Ohio importer of the product recalls six million valve stems made by the same company, because of cracks that can occur in as little as six months. Dill [...]

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Eight years after the Explorer/Firestone rollovers pushed the problems of tire aging to the fore, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has issued its first consumer advisory that addressed the dangers of aged tires. On June 2, NHTSA released the advisory as a kick-off the summer driving season. The all-purpose warning for [...]

June 19: Dill Air Controls added a bulletin to their website with instructions for inspecting valve stems. ORLANDO, FLA — Safety advocates are urging motorists to inspect their valve stems for cracks and to check their tire pressure in the wake of one distributor’s recall of defective valve stems made in China by Shanghai Baolong [...]

The current tire recall system designed to alert and capture defective models is ineffective and outmoded. Despite many technological advances, consumers trying to identify a defective tire still rely on a 38-year-old recall system that rarely averages more than a 20 percent return rate, leaving millions of potentially deadly tires on consumers’ vehicles. Other important [...]