Foreign Tire Sales, Inc. Recall - Chinese

[wingfoot321]

Just read in Business Week, July 23, 2007 issue that a NHSTA recall is in progress against - Foreign Tire Sales, Inc. of Union, N.J. (and others not defined yet)
Hangzhou Zhongee Rubber Co. of China
Brands are Vesta, Goodride, & Chaoyang

The article doesn't say what tire lines are involved, car,truck,trailer,?

What is interesting is this statement, "Chinese companies aren't legally obligated to execute U.S. ordered recalls."

Their tires have been having problems since 2005 and the recall only came about because attorneys are suing the retail distributors.

The distributor (FTS) sells 700,000 tires per year and can't afford a recall that is estimated to cost $90M. Apparently a company doesn't have to have an insurance policy or be bonded to cover these types of situations.

What the hell is our government doing? besides nothing. If they want to do business in a field that can have disasterous consequences, then why don't they have to be made financially & legally liable.

I think I will continue to buy my tires from Goodyear, Michelin, & Bridgestone. You folks who want Maxxis, Mystery, Who done it, on your vehicles can do so.

[bobfowler]

Originally Posted by wingfoot321

Just read in Business Week, July 23, 2007 issue that a NHSTA recall is in progress against - Foreign Tire Sales, Inc. of Union, N.J. (and others not defined yet)
Hangzhou Zhongee Rubber Co. of China
Brands are Vesta, Goodride, & Chaoyang

The article doesn't say what tire lines are involved, car,truck,trailer,?

What is interesting is this statement, "Chinese companies aren't legally obligated to execute U.S. ordered recalls."

Their tires have been having problems since 2005 and the recall only came about because attorneys are suing the retail distributors.

The distributor (FTS) sells 700,000 tires per year and can't afford a recall that is estimated to cost $90M. Apparently a company doesn't have to have an insurance policy or be bonded to cover these types of situations.

What the hell is our government doing? besides nothing. If they want to do business in a field that can have disasterous consequences, then why don't they have to be made financially & legally liable.

I think I will continue to buy my tires from Goodyear, Michelin, & Bridgestone. You folks who want Maxxis, Mystery, Who done it, on your vehicles can do so.

I couldn't agree more. I learned long ago that saving a few bucks on questionable merchandise usually means you're going to wind up buying a replacement sooner than expected. With something as important as tires, NEVER take chances...

[scottanlily]

Goodyear marathons are made in china and canada so if you have marathons
on your airstream ,you could have chinese tires on it ,either way they have had immensly huge failures continuousely .Michelin ,BFGoodrich ,bridgstone
are excellent tires . Many have gone to Maxxis to avoid all the marathon failures ,and other brands .Cheng shin is chinese ,they seem to be providing
good tires so far . I prefer American made myself ,BFGoodrich tires on the
travelall ,michelin on the 1 ton 50 chevy COE .The trailer has bias 9 ply
bias belted Herculese ,cheng shin ,over 7000 miles on them . so then the deal
is this ,we buy offshore ,things go wrong like the tires ,china is not regulated
by the USA ,we cannot do anything to them ,but STOP buying their products.
and as long as everyone wants to go on the cheap ,including american
manafacturers and businesses that give jobs to offshore companies and buy
chinese products cheaper ,hence bigger profits ,this is the future unfortunately.

Scott

[Tarheel]

The really sad part is even when you think you are buying an american product it may be foreign. Product names no longer mean what they used to mean.

[dufferin]

buying an american product made in chinese you can expect that the specification are high enough to have good product.

[boatdoc]

Originally Posted by dufferin

buying an american product made in chinese you can expect that the specification are high enough to have good product.

Hi dufferin; You are kidding us, right? Remember this, you live in a buyer beware world. Wake up! "Boatdoc"

[crispyboy]

You have to go further than just the label, you have to ask where the specific item is manufactured.
Case in point. Our company gives us vouchers to buy steel toe work boots. Most of us go to the Red Wing store. I was asking the clerk about the quality of the boots etc. The clerk showed me which boots were made domestically and the other line up from over seas. Quite a difference in quality and price.
If you ask anyone who has been wearing Red Wings they will tell you that on the whole the quality has suffered.

[safari57]

Another point - wheel bearings. The first set I got were made in China. As I was about to leave the parts store the "old guy" behind the counter stopped me and took a look, shook his head, and back to the parts counter we go. He grabbed the newbie parts guy and into the back they went. Out they came with another set, this time we took a hard look. All were in the same manufacturers boxes and looked identical, but the second set were made in Mexico. You could see the difference just by looking. The "old guy" said that the failure rate on the bearings made in China is quite a bit higher. I've had the wheel bearings on now for 5 years with nary a problem. The set I replaced were made in China and had lasted two years and were noisy. It isn't just tires, I now check everything and ask for options. Sometimes I have had to go elsewhere than where I started to get a non Chinese made part but the effort has been well worth it IMHO.

Barry

[Minnie's Mate]

No secret that I'm a big Disney fan. A couple of weeks ago Disney announced that it was spending millions to test all future products made in China at their expense, not the factory's expense, for lead paint. This is despite their high standard and tough specifications because they had reason to believe their toy manufacturer in China might not be following their specs. I believe the same thing happened to Mattel and now they are recalling millions of their toys made in China because lead paint was used. My sons are Cub-Scouts, one particular medal my oldest son was awarded recently is made in Georgia (within 30 miles of our home actually) but is shipped to China for what...to be painted. Now, I get an e-mail from our Pack leader stating that the Boys-Scouts has notified all Pack leaders to have the parents to remove the pin from the uniforms and store them where the boys can't have access to them because they suspect they may have lead based paint on them.

All my life I've heard "old timers" complain about the quality of Chinese products and the junk that we buy from them and now it has come home to roost. What goes around comes around. Americans want high wages but products at cheap prices. Products can't be produced at low enough prices to meet the desired price point and pay factory workers at the desired union wages or even our legal minimum wages in this country so the manufacturing jobs are "out-sourced" to a place where labor is cheapest--China. Now we are getting what we pay for: consumer goods that are dangerous!

BTW, Michelin is a French tire company...where are they made?

I'm stepping down from my soap box now.

[crispyboy]

Michelin is a French company but I've seen a lot of the tires made domestically.
I had good luck from my Cooper Tires made in Ohio.

[wingfoot321]

Minnie's Mate,

Couldn't agree with you more.

Globalization doesn't look too good to me.

Michelin is a French company. Produces in France, Italy, S. Korea, China, Eastern Europe, S. Amer. (don't know which countries) three plants in Canada, 1 plant in Indiana, 1 plant in Alabama, 3 plants in S. Carolina, and 1 plant in Nevada. I am sure this is only partially complete. They have been in the US so long I forgot they were foreign. But, so is Bridgestone/Firestone.

I see a breakdown between engineering and manufacturing and the result is poor quality. Trying to communicate all the way to china must be a daunting task for the designers, production people, & Quality control. China is a subsistence economy that is not going to throw anything away. My dealings with japanese manufacturing plants earned them nothing but my respect. Their culture sets quality standards so high that the types of compromises we are hearing about in China just do not happen in Japan.

I would love to buy an airstream assembled in Japan or in a Japanese plant.

[Minnie's Mate]

Originally Posted by wingfoot321

...I would love to buy an airstream assembled in Japan or in a Japanese plant.

Whoa there. Airstreams are very popular in Japan. Don't go giving JC any ideas. We don't need to loose any more manufacturing jobs overseas. Now, bring some of their industrial engineers over here to give some pointers on quality assembly might not be a bad idea. But if you start assembling them in Japan they would first build a $200 million automated plant full of robots and then they would no longer be hand made. The quality might go up exponentially, but that which makes the current quality acceptable would be lost, the cost would come down, production numbers would skyrocket, and the campgrounds in the U.S. would be over run with Airstreams within five years. Is that what we, the few, the proud owners of the unique (in today's culture anyway), aluminum, hand riveted, American Icon want?

[azflycaster]

Originally Posted by wingfoot321

I would love to buy an airstream assembled in Japan or in a Japanese plant.

It would make for an interesting tow back to the mothership.