Light truck tires made by Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company have been linked to least eight deaths but have so far drawn little attention from federal safety regulators, The Los Angeles Times reported Wednesday.
The Goodyear tire failures involve 16-inch Load Range E tires manufactured mainly for commercial vehicles, trailers, passenger vans and large sport-utility vehicles, the paper said, citing court documents.
Goodyear became aware of what one of its own engineers labeled an "alarming" problem with the tires five years ago and made a design change to make the tires stronger, according to the report.
But the company did not recall the older tyres, millions of which are still on the road, including the popular Goodyear Wrangler AT and HT, the paper said.
While Goodyear defended its actions, saying it had found no defects in the tires, it has quietly settled several of at least 20 lawsuits resulting from the crashes, according to the LA Times.
Settlement amounts and company documents turned over in these cases have been kept secret, a move that has drawn criticism from consumer groups and plaintiffs attorneys, the report said.
The suits blame tread separation, virtually identical to the recent problems experienced by Firestone tires mounted on the Ford Explorer sport utility vehicle.
The true number of casualties that have resulted from the failure of Goodyear light-truck tires is not known because there has been so little publicity about them, The Los Angeles Times said.
Officials with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration have acknowledged that in the last three years they have received 59 reports of tire failures -- including one fatality -- involving Goodyear light-truck tires.
Asked whether the agency plans to open an investigation, administration spokesman Rae Tyson told the newspaper: "We're continuing to monitor the situation."
Goodyear officials this week said they began noticing a large number of complaints involving the light-truck tires as early as 1995, prompting extensive tests and reviews of design and manufacturing processes.
The company decided not to tell safety regulators about the complaints because tests indicated the tires were not flawed, according to the report.
"We believe the Load Range E tires to be good tires free of any manufacturing or design defects," said Goodyear spokesman Chuck Sinclair.
"Tread separations do not necessarily indicate a defect in a tire. A tread separation, which today is the most common form of tire failure, is normally the end result of something else that has happened to a tire."
Goodyear believes other factors may be responsible.
"What we did see during this ëreviewû process was the start of an evolution of a new breed of larger vehicles, pickups, vans and towed vehicles, and trends in modifications to those vehicles that might lead to overloading of the tire," Sinclair said.
That observation led Goodyear in 1996 to start putting an extra layer, or so-called nylon cap, on Load Range E tires to make them stronger, he said. The more robust construction has resulted in fewer claims against Goodyear, a company engineer has testified, according to the paper -- LOS ANGELES (AFP)
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