Angry in the Great White North

a heat-seeking missile in the Conservative arsenal

CTV News has carried the tire recall story further, including some disturbing detail on the number of suspect tires sold in Canada:

One of the worst disasters a driver can face is when a tire sheds its tread. But CTV News has found** imported tires from China prone to that kind of failure for sale in Canada, despite a recall in the United States.

The light truck tires are blamed for two deaths in a U.S. lawsuit, after the treads peeled away and a van lost control on a turnpike last year.

"The belts can come apart, the tire will overheat and it will basically just disintegrate," Kirk Robinson, an independent mechanic and host of a call-in cable TV show in Toronto called "Auto Talk," told CTV News.

He said the tires could be as dangerous as the defective Firestone models taken off the market in 2000.

Transport Canada has asked any Canadians who have experienced safety issues with the tires to phone its toll-free complaint number at 1-800-333-0510.

As we now know, the NHTSA has compelled Foreign Tire Sales of New Jersey to initiate a recall of the tires made in the Hangzhou tire plant in China. So far, Transport Canada is only monitoring the situation. As it is, it appears that a large number of these tires have been sold in Canada from coast to coast:

Mississauga, Ont.-based importer Aziz Rakla, of Rakla Tires Inc., claims to be the exclusive importer of the products in Canada.

Rakla refused to speak on camera, but said the tires are tested at the Chinese factory, owned by Hangzhou Zhongce Rubber Co., and are fine for use. He also said he orders and sells the tires "by the container full," from B.C. to Newfoundland.

Apparently unknown to Transport Canada, there are two major distributors of the tires in Canada: Remington Tire and Canada Tire Inc.

While Remington did not return phone calls by CTV News, a spokesperson from Canada Tire said the company would immediately stop offering the models.

"Canada Tire Inc. has decided to stop selling the Westlake light truck line in question (models CR857 and CR860) at the present time until we get further clarification on the situation," Harold Busner, vice president of Canada Tire, told CTV News in an email.

Transport Canada plans to obtain some sample tires and do some testing. In the mean time, Canadian consumers will have to decide on their own what action to take if they have these tires on their vehicles.

Will there be a recall? Even if Transport Canada finds that the tires are flawed, a recall is not a foregone conclusion:

Under Canadian law, importers cannot be forced into recalling products. But the government can require them to inform their customers about any safety issues.

Let's hope that customers are informed sooner rather than later thanks to the Globe and Mail and CTV News.

** I will mention that both the Globe and Mail story and the CTV report were developed using information initially published on this blog. This included conversations with me to review the information and to explain the research. For space considerations, credit was not given to me, and though normally that would irk me considerably, I am happy to know that this potentially dangerous situation is getting the public attention it needs.