As Tire Retreading Market Grows, So Do Counterfeits, Look-Alikes
By Susan L. Hodges, Special to Transport Topics
This story appears in the May 26 print edition of Transport Topics.
As fuel prices have skyrocketed, trucking companies have been forced to look closer at other parts of their businesses to trim costs.
One area receiving increased attention is tires, the third-largest expense behind fuel and labor for most fleets. The result has been more truckers turning to two options: One is an industry-accepted alternative to new tires, but the other might cause carriers to unwittingly threaten highway safety.
The first lower-cost alternative to new tires is retreads, which generally enjoy a good safety record and cost about half the price of new tires. No wonder, then, that an estimated 18.6 million retreads were sold in North America in 2006, about 35% of all passenger and commercial vehicles sold, according to the Tire Retread & Repair Information Bureau. TRIB also said more than 17 million retreads were sold in 2007, based on preliminary estimates.
Harvey Brodsky, TRIB’s managing director, said advances in rubber chemistry and retreading techniques have improved the safety of retreads, and tests have shown that mileage delivered by high-quality truck retreads differs by just 5%, compared with new tires.
At same time, however, a growing number of counterfeit and look-alike tires are hitting North America. These are poorly made knockoffs that usually sell for a fraction of the brand-name tires they are made to resemble.
They threaten highway safety, as unwitting users think they’ve purchased the real thing at a bargain, and have forced retreaders to create new methods to ensure every tire they handle is safe.
“This is a huge problem worldwide,” said Roy Littlefield, executive vice president of the Tire Industry Association. “Many dealers will tell you they’ve been approached by someone with a chance to buy a tire that looks just like a Michelin, but isn’t.”
Dealers even have brought counterfeit and look-alike tires to TIA meetings to show others what to look for, he said.
Sporting tread designs patented by established, major tire manufacturers, counterfeit tires bear the names of the products they mimic but are made from cheaper materials and may sell for up to 60% less.
“Look-alike” tires carry no brand name but use tread designs and other features stolen from reputable manufacturers, and also sell for far less. These tires pose multiple risks to truckers, who could buy the product mistakenly believing they are brand-name.
“The casings aren’t holding up, and they’re causing liability and safety issues,” said Littlefield.
These counterfeit and look-alike tires do not hold up as well as retreads, a fact that has caused companies to take extra measures to inspect all retread candidates and refuse those that do not meet tire integrity standards.
For example, Tredroc Tire Services, Melrose Park, Ill., uses a laser shearography machine, which functions much like an ultrasound device to inspect tires that are candidates for retreading inside and out.
“With this, we inspect one tire at a time,” General Manager Tobbie Taylor said during a visit to the plant.
Not only will the machine show any manufacturing flaws in new tires, it also identifies and produces images of problems in used tires caused by faulty repairs, running flat and sidewall impacts.
Tires that fail the shearography exam are returned to the customer, Taylor said, some of whom may have purchased a copycat tire unknowingly and will attempt to sue the perceived manufacturer.
To combat the problem, several makers are suing counterfeiters around the world. Sources at Michelin North America, however, would not comment because it has several lawsuits pending.
Among the cases, according to documents, is a lawsuit Michelin filed in Canada in 2006 against Distribution Nortop and Rechapage Nortop Richmond, accusing the firms of distributing look-alikes of four Michelin commercial tire tread designs.
Michelin also has been involved in several other cases:
In October 2006, it settled U.S. and Canadian lawsuits with Dynamic Tire Corp. involving allegations of patent infringement. Dynamic, a Canadian unit of GPX International Tire Corp., agreed to stop selling six models of Class 8 tires and pay an undisclosed sum.
As part of a settlement between Michelin and the Chinese Manufacturers Alliance in December, CMA affiliates agreed to change treads on tires Michelin charged were designed on its patents (12-10, p. 8).
Continental Tire has singled out Asia as the largest producer of knock-off tires and vowed to pursue counterfeiters. Manfred Wennemer, chairman of Continental AG, said late last year the company successfully stopped sales of counterfeit truck tires in Germany and filed claims for damages against a dealer in Taiwan.
“Pirated reproductions do not have the same material and processing quality as genuine products,” Wennemer said in a statement, “and can quickly become a safety risk.”
Similarly, Yokohama Rubber won the right to prevent counterfeit tires resembling the company’s DNA S. drive tire from being sold in Japan.
Copycat tires are “not a big issue” for Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., the world’s largest tire maker, said Dave Wilkens, spokesman for Goodyear’s commercial tires division, but the company’s retread centers are alert to the problem.
“If we do see any, we’ll aggressively protect our patents from infringement,” Wilkens said.
Bridgestone Firestone North American Tire makes a tire under its Dayton Tires label that competes in price with low-cost, legally imported truck tires. Bridgestone Firestone officially formed Bridgestone Bandag Tire Solutions in April after completing the integration of its previously announced Bandag purchase.
Spokesman Lyle Haylett declined comment on any issues Bridgestone may or may not have with counterfeit tires, but he said retreaders face the same issues with copycat tires as with other tires, especially whether they can be properly recapped. Thus, every tire sent for retreading is inspected and subjected to further testing.
Similarly, a spokeswoman for tire retreader Marangoni said its new Alpha Ring System helps produce a safer retread than ever before, in part because it is made in one piece with no splice.
The company’s Ring Builder machine mounts each ringtread on a tire, centers it and balances it all the way around the tire without human intervention.
“Through the oils in our hands, human touch can contaminate a retread’s buff surface, cushion or back of the tread, making it unable to bond with the tire,” spokeswoman Marge Connors said.
By removing the splice and the largest opportunity for rubber contamination, she said, Marangoni produces a safer tire while reducing energy consumption.
Although TIA considers the issue of counterfeit and copycat tires to be still emerging in the United States, Littlefield said the association is trying to determine what can be done to keep them off the market.
As yet, no statistics are available on the quantity of fake tires coming into the country; all information is anecdotal, even if the evidence is not.
“We’re trying to take care of it before it becomes an even larger issue,” Littlefield said.
TIA is working to create inspection standards that retreaders can use to identify counterfeits, as well as other tires that won’t hold up as retreads.
“We are beginning talks with stakeholders to see if it is feasible to come up with something akin to best practices for casings,” said Paul Fiori, a TIA spokesman. “We suspect that some look-alike tires may pass the FMVSS 119 tests,” he added, “and if that is true, the task is daunting.”
Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 119 requires manufacturers to perform tests to certify their products meet safety requirements, including performance parameters in endurance and strength.
But TIA’s Littlefield finds fault with the practice of manufacturers’ testing their tires themselves.
“Then they just tell the government [that their tires pass all testing], and the government takes your word for it,” he said. If this is so, it’s all the more reason for any inspection policy created now to require retread candidates to pass multiple types of tests, he added.
Rea Tyson, spokesman for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, offered this response: “Virtually every federal safety regulation is self-certifying. We set a standard, and it’s up to the manufacturer to do whatever testing is necessary to ensure whatever product they’re selling meets all applicable safety standards.”
Tyson said NHTSA has a rigorous enforcement program, including unannounced visits to plants by inspectors.
“It’s a tried-and-true process,” said Tyson.
Nonetheless, Advanced ID Corp. and SkyeTek have developed the SkyeTek Ultra-High Frequency Radio Frequency Identification reader.
Dan Finch, chief executive officer of Advanced ID, said his company provides RFID tags that contain a silicon chip and an antenna, which manufacturers can embed in their tires or in patches applied later. A handheld or fixed-position reader made by Advanced ID can then identify and track any tire containing a tag. System applications include inventory management and theft recovery.
But couldn’t counterfeiters use RFID tags too? “The answer is, probably no,” Finch said.
“You have to get the tire tags from an approved supplier, and there’s only one in the world, which makes them for us.” Manufacturers also must have an Electronic Product Code to use in the tags.
“The most you can do is injure a tire tag so it doesn’t read at all,” Finch said.
This story appears in the May 26 print edition of Transport Topics.
As fuel prices have skyrocketed, trucking companies have been forced to look closer at other parts of their businesses to trim costs.
One area receiving increased attention is tires, the third-largest expense behind fuel and labor for most fleets. The result has been more truckers turning to two options: One is an industry-accepted alternative to new tires, but the other might cause carriers to unwittingly threaten highway safety.
The first lower-cost alternative to new tires is retreads, which generally enjoy a good safety record and cost about half the price of new tires. No wonder, then, that an estimated 18.6 million retreads were sold in North America in 2006, about 35% of all passenger and commercial vehicles sold, according to the Tire Retread & Repair Information Bureau. TRIB also said more than 17 million retreads were sold in 2007, based on preliminary estimates.
Harvey Brodsky, TRIB’s managing director, said advances in rubber chemistry and retreading techniques have improved the safety of retreads, and tests have shown that mileage delivered by high-quality truck retreads differs by just 5%, compared with new tires.
At same time, however, a growing number of counterfeit and look-alike tires are hitting North America. These are poorly made knockoffs that usually sell for a fraction of the brand-name tires they are made to resemble.
They threaten highway safety, as unwitting users think they’ve purchased the real thing at a bargain, and have forced retreaders to create new methods to ensure every tire they handle is safe.
“This is a huge problem worldwide,” said Roy Littlefield, executive vice president of the Tire Industry Association. “Many dealers will tell you they’ve been approached by someone with a chance to buy a tire that looks just like a Michelin, but isn’t.”
Dealers even have brought counterfeit and look-alike tires to TIA meetings to show others what to look for, he said.
Sporting tread designs patented by established, major tire manufacturers, counterfeit tires bear the names of the products they mimic but are made from cheaper materials and may sell for up to 60% less.
“Look-alike” tires carry no brand name but use tread designs and other features stolen from reputable manufacturers, and also sell for far less. These tires pose multiple risks to truckers, who could buy the product mistakenly believing they are brand-name.
“The casings aren’t holding up, and they’re causing liability and safety issues,” said Littlefield.
These counterfeit and look-alike tires do not hold up as well as retreads, a fact that has caused companies to take extra measures to inspect all retread candidates and refuse those that do not meet tire integrity standards.
For example, Tredroc Tire Services, Melrose Park, Ill., uses a laser shearography machine, which functions much like an ultrasound device to inspect tires that are candidates for retreading inside and out.
“With this, we inspect one tire at a time,” General Manager Tobbie Taylor said during a visit to the plant.
Not only will the machine show any manufacturing flaws in new tires, it also identifies and produces images of problems in used tires caused by faulty repairs, running flat and sidewall impacts.
Tires that fail the shearography exam are returned to the customer, Taylor said, some of whom may have purchased a copycat tire unknowingly and will attempt to sue the perceived manufacturer.
To combat the problem, several makers are suing counterfeiters around the world. Sources at Michelin North America, however, would not comment because it has several lawsuits pending.
Among the cases, according to documents, is a lawsuit Michelin filed in Canada in 2006 against Distribution Nortop and Rechapage Nortop Richmond, accusing the firms of distributing look-alikes of four Michelin commercial tire tread designs.
Michelin also has been involved in several other cases:
In October 2006, it settled U.S. and Canadian lawsuits with Dynamic Tire Corp. involving allegations of patent infringement. Dynamic, a Canadian unit of GPX International Tire Corp., agreed to stop selling six models of Class 8 tires and pay an undisclosed sum.
As part of a settlement between Michelin and the Chinese Manufacturers Alliance in December, CMA affiliates agreed to change treads on tires Michelin charged were designed on its patents (12-10, p. 8).
Continental Tire has singled out Asia as the largest producer of knock-off tires and vowed to pursue counterfeiters. Manfred Wennemer, chairman of Continental AG, said late last year the company successfully stopped sales of counterfeit truck tires in Germany and filed claims for damages against a dealer in Taiwan.
“Pirated reproductions do not have the same material and processing quality as genuine products,” Wennemer said in a statement, “and can quickly become a safety risk.”
Similarly, Yokohama Rubber won the right to prevent counterfeit tires resembling the company’s DNA S. drive tire from being sold in Japan.
Copycat tires are “not a big issue” for Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., the world’s largest tire maker, said Dave Wilkens, spokesman for Goodyear’s commercial tires division, but the company’s retread centers are alert to the problem.
“If we do see any, we’ll aggressively protect our patents from infringement,” Wilkens said.
Bridgestone Firestone North American Tire makes a tire under its Dayton Tires label that competes in price with low-cost, legally imported truck tires. Bridgestone Firestone officially formed Bridgestone Bandag Tire Solutions in April after completing the integration of its previously announced Bandag purchase.
Spokesman Lyle Haylett declined comment on any issues Bridgestone may or may not have with counterfeit tires, but he said retreaders face the same issues with copycat tires as with other tires, especially whether they can be properly recapped. Thus, every tire sent for retreading is inspected and subjected to further testing.
Similarly, a spokeswoman for tire retreader Marangoni said its new Alpha Ring System helps produce a safer retread than ever before, in part because it is made in one piece with no splice.
The company’s Ring Builder machine mounts each ringtread on a tire, centers it and balances it all the way around the tire without human intervention.
“Through the oils in our hands, human touch can contaminate a retread’s buff surface, cushion or back of the tread, making it unable to bond with the tire,” spokeswoman Marge Connors said.
By removing the splice and the largest opportunity for rubber contamination, she said, Marangoni produces a safer tire while reducing energy consumption.
Although TIA considers the issue of counterfeit and copycat tires to be still emerging in the United States, Littlefield said the association is trying to determine what can be done to keep them off the market.
As yet, no statistics are available on the quantity of fake tires coming into the country; all information is anecdotal, even if the evidence is not.
“We’re trying to take care of it before it becomes an even larger issue,” Littlefield said.
TIA is working to create inspection standards that retreaders can use to identify counterfeits, as well as other tires that won’t hold up as retreads.
“We are beginning talks with stakeholders to see if it is feasible to come up with something akin to best practices for casings,” said Paul Fiori, a TIA spokesman. “We suspect that some look-alike tires may pass the FMVSS 119 tests,” he added, “and if that is true, the task is daunting.”
Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 119 requires manufacturers to perform tests to certify their products meet safety requirements, including performance parameters in endurance and strength.
But TIA’s Littlefield finds fault with the practice of manufacturers’ testing their tires themselves.
“Then they just tell the government [that their tires pass all testing], and the government takes your word for it,” he said. If this is so, it’s all the more reason for any inspection policy created now to require retread candidates to pass multiple types of tests, he added.
Rea Tyson, spokesman for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, offered this response: “Virtually every federal safety regulation is self-certifying. We set a standard, and it’s up to the manufacturer to do whatever testing is necessary to ensure whatever product they’re selling meets all applicable safety standards.”
Tyson said NHTSA has a rigorous enforcement program, including unannounced visits to plants by inspectors.
“It’s a tried-and-true process,” said Tyson.
Nonetheless, Advanced ID Corp. and SkyeTek have developed the SkyeTek Ultra-High Frequency Radio Frequency Identification reader.
Dan Finch, chief executive officer of Advanced ID, said his company provides RFID tags that contain a silicon chip and an antenna, which manufacturers can embed in their tires or in patches applied later. A handheld or fixed-position reader made by Advanced ID can then identify and track any tire containing a tag. System applications include inventory management and theft recovery.
But couldn’t counterfeiters use RFID tags too? “The answer is, probably no,” Finch said.
“You have to get the tire tags from an approved supplier, and there’s only one in the world, which makes them for us.” Manufacturers also must have an Electronic Product Code to use in the tags.
“The most you can do is injure a tire tag so it doesn’t read at all,” Finch said.
