RESTON, Va. (Jan. 3, 2003) — The Tire Industry Association filed a petition with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) Jan. 2, asking the federal agency to reconsider its final tire labeling rule for passenger and light truck tire retreaders.
In the petition, the Reston-based trade association said retread passenger and light truck tires should be exempt from the new rule, which would require tire identification numbers to be molded onto both sides of a tire.
“The purpose of the enhanced labeling requirements of the TREAD Act is to ‘assist consumers in identifying tires that may be the subject of a recall.' Retread tires have never been the subject of a recall,” TIA wrote in a letter to NHTSA Administrator Jeffrey Runge.
The association said its retreader members estimated the cost of the labeling rule to be between $2,000 and $10,000. TIA said price increases used to offset that cost could drive the overall cost of retreads closer to new tires, thereby harming the retread market and those businesses.
Using data compiled through a member survey, TIA said the final tire labeling rule “could be the death of the passenger retread industry.”