The Tire Industry Association (TIA) and Delphi Corp. have agreed to develop jointly a tire dealer training program on tire pressure monitoring systems (TPMS).
Roy Littlefield, TIA's executive vice president, said the association will begin fundraising for the new program after the first of the year and hopes to roll it out in 2005. He said although the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's (NHTSA) proposed TPMS rule has drawn ire from the tire industry, the fact is that monitoring systems eventually will be on all cars, and tire dealers will need to know how to service these systems across the board. He said TIA especially is moving forward on this issue because Right to Repair legislation has been stalled in Congress for some time.
``From a tire industry perspective, we cannot be sending people to automobile dealers for any work on a tire or any tire-related issue,'' Mr. Littlefield said. ``This is something we see as a major issue, and we're gearing up for it as quickly as we can.''
Delphi and TIA partnered before to create TIA's Basic Automotive Tire Service (ATS) program. Delphi researched the material and produced the training video featuring TIA personnel, Mr. Littlefield said, adding that the TPMS program also likely will be Web-based and interactive.
``Our gut feeling going in is that it's going to be similar to ATS.... It's hard to know at the beginning if it's going to come out looking exactly the same, but it'll be based on that kind of a model,'' he said.
Mr. Littlefield added that a TPMS program will be updated annually because of new car models and changes in laws and regulations.