LT (light truck) rated tires from a Chinese factory, sold under a variety of off-brand names, are being recalled. The belts were improperly bound and the tread could separate.

So far the recall involves tires sold between 2002 and 2006 under the Westlake, Compass and YKS brand names. But the distributor indicated that the same factory sold the tires to other distributors as well, so they may also be labeled under other (as yet undisclosed) brand names.

I do not know if this factory made tires in the popular Vanagon sizes or not, but if you have off-brand tires on your Vanagon you'd better look into it just in case.

Full text of article below.

- Ron Salmon The Bus Depot, Inc. www.busdepot.com (215) 234-VWVW

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TRENTON, N.J. (AP) - A tire importing company ordered to recall thousands of light truck radial tires that were purchased from a Chinese manufacturer said Monday it had submitted a recall plan to the federal government.

Foreign Tire Sales Inc., a small importer based in Union, N.J., said it hopes to begin the recall July 16. The company said it would soon release details of the plan on its Web site, , and would establish an 800 number for consumers and dealers.http://www.foreigntire.com

A spokesman said the company is setting up procedures to replace tires for free and to render the recalled ones unusable.

The company was required to submit the plan by Monday to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which must approve the plan before the recall can start. It could involve up to 450,000 possibly unsafe tires.

Heather Hopkins, a spokeswoman for the agency, said late Monday it had received the plan and would review it.

The safety administration last week notified Foreign Tire Sales that the company is responsible for the recall and faces penalties of up to $6,000 per violation, with a maximum of nearly $16.4 million, if it doesn't remedy the problem. The New Jersey Attorney General's Office has joined the investigation.

Foreign Tire Sales said in a statement that its tire engineer determined at some point that the company "was being sold tires that did not meet our own standards and posed a safety hazard."

The tires in question, manufactured by Hangzhou Zhongce Rubber Company, could suffer tread separation because they were made without a safety feature that helps bind the belts of a tire. They were sold between mid-2002 and mid-2006 under the brand names Westlake, Compass and YKS.

The company said that because the manufacturer is not assisting, the recall is jeopardizing the "very existence" of Foreign Tire, which has only 13 full-time and three part-time employees.

"FTS will make every effort to locate, identify and replace all of the affected tires it imported into the United States," the statement said. "FTS has gone the extra mile in its testing and subsequent early notification of a possible problem."

The tires in question all bear the letters "LT" for the tire size, plus DOT numbers starting with "7D" and ending in "02,""03,""04" or "05."

Foreign Tire Sales said it believes the Chinese company sold the same tires to other companies.