Nearly 19 years have passed since the last manufactured tire. Goodyear has arranged to recall 173,000 recreational vehicle (RV) tires, which according to the U.S. government, can be defective and have killed eight people and injured 69 since 1998.
The Goodyear G159 tire has been subject to an investigation by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration since the end of December 2017.
The agency released information on its website that stated that it was able to pressure the company into recall, according to a report.
According to the documents, the tread may be separated from the rest of the vehicle, which can cause motorists to lose control, increasing the possibility of a crash.
The agency began its investigation into the tires five years ago after an order from a judge to release Goodyear information sealed under settlement agreements and court orders.
Lawsuits and safety advocates allege that the tires were designed for delivery trucks and not RVs traveling at highway speeds. They allege that Goodyear kept the problems secret for years by settling cases and getting judges to seal records.
Goodyear produced the tires between 1996 and 2003. The numbers of deaths and injuries were released in a 2018 request for information directed to Akron, Ohio, company. The agency did not provide details on the number of fatalities during crashes that involved tires.
Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., based in Akron, Ohio, denied that the tires have a safety defect and said Tuesday that few, if any, are still on the road. The company said it’s doing the recall to address risks when the tires are underinflated or overloaded on motorhomes.
“This tire hasn’t been made since 2003, it consistently met Goodyear’s demanding safety standards, and we have not received an injury claim related to the tire’s use on a Class A motorhome in more than 14 years,” Goodyear said in a prepared statement.
Documents show that the government safety agency sent Goodyear a letter requesting a recall of the 22.5-inch diameter tires on Feb. 22 of this year. The company declined the request on March 8. But Goodyear later agreed to the recall “to address concerns that some of these tires may still be in the marketplace or in use.”
NHTSA has to organize a public hearing and then take the matter to court to force companies to conduct recalls.
Goodyear can replace tires using a better model for free to owners of RVs. Tires used on other vehicles may swap them out for $500.
Goodyear said in official documents that the makers of the RVs that utilized the tires have ceased to be operating. Therefore they do not have registration information for the RVs with defective tires.
NHTSA issued a statement urging anyone who owns, rents, or uses an RV or truck with 22.5-inch rims to ensure that G159 tires are not on the vehicles.
“If their vehicle has these tires, they should have this recall completed as soon as possible,” the statement said. The agency said it found that the tires experienced a high failure rate when compared to similar tires.
Michael Brooks, acting executive director of the nonprofit Center for Auto Safety, said the Goodyear case exposes every flaw in the system designed to keep unsafe tires and vehicles off the roads.
“Sealing off the documentation that there is a distinct threat to public safety should be against the law,” said Brooks, who added that several states have such laws.
He said NHTSA should have acted much sooner after getting a solid case from attorney David Kurtz in a lawsuit against Goodyear.
“I think that the documents that were handed to them at the beginning of the investigation were enough to reach a very quick conclusion,” said Brooks, whose organization sued to get an Arizona judge to release lawsuit documents against Goodyear.
Goodyear, he said, put up a huge fight. “There was a lot of cat-and-mouse going on with Goodyear on this issue,” Brooks said. “They’ve effectively drawn out this defect process so long that they’re not going to have to replace many tires, and that was the ultimate goal, to preserve profits.”
NHTSA’s statement did not address why it took more than five years for the agency to seek a recall in the case.
Goodyear’s statement said the RV manufacturers who picked the G159 tire for their motorhomes were responsible for communicating appropriate load limits to their customers. The statement also said that the manufacturers that would have been responsible for such communications are no longer in business.
This article originally appeared on WTVM.