Under the pressure of the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), Goodyear, the US tire giant, announced on Tuesday that it would recall 173000 g159 tires for recreational vehicles because of the possibility of catastrophic tread separation. Prior to this, Goodyear and NHTSA argued for several months on whether to recall the tire that has been discontinued for nearly 20 years.
NHTSA first launched an investigation in december2017, and then formally requested Goodyear to recall in February this year, saying that the failure rate of g159 tires was high, "occurring at a relatively early stage of service life".
NHTSA said in February that Goodyear seemed to be aware of the safety defects "when these tires were produced in 2002", but did not propose a recall.
Goodyear submitted a 19 page reply to NHTSA in March this year, saying that it did not believe that these tires had defects, questioned whether these tires were still in use, and pointed out that these tires had not been produced since 2003.
Goodyear said that the claim that these tires failed earlier than other tires was "untrue", and NHTSA's letter reflected a misunderstanding of the potential data.
Goodyear said on Tuesday that it agreed to recall "to address people's concerns that some of these tires may still be on the market or in use", but did not recognize that these tires were defective.
Goodyear believes that RV manufacturers play a "major role" in "recalling their cars to explain the abuse of owners". The company claimed that NHTSA's attempt to impose the responsibility for recalling tires on Goodyear was a "serious and inappropriate departure from more than 20 years of practice". NHTSA on Tuesday urged car owners to ensure that the recalled tires were not used, citing safety concerns.
In February this year, NHTSA said that g159 tire defect was "the central issue of 41 lawsuits involving 98 casualties between 1999 and 2016". Goodyear said NHTSA had "inaccurately" exaggerated the number of alleged accidents.
NHTSA said Goodyear often obtained court orders to prohibit the publication of tire information found in litigation. Citing the fatal accident report in the NHTSA database, Goodyear said that the agency "could not reasonably claim that it did not know" the accidents involving tires before 2017.