Non REACH Compliant Tires Still Sold in Europe from buzai232's blog

Non REACH Compliant Tires Still Sold in Europe

On Oct. 16, the European Tyre and Rubber Manufacturers’ Association announced the results of its second round of tire testing examining REACH compliance of tires found within Europe.To get more news about austone tires review, you can visit gofortunetire.com official website.

ETRMA’s results show that roughly 10% of the sample failed to comply with the clean oil legislation, around the same proportion as failed the last set of tests held earlier this year. However, while ETRMA raised concerns about both compliance and enforcement of REACH regulations, some of the companies named in the report have already responded to accusations of compliance failure by raising questions of their own about the way in which the sample was selected.

ETRMA’s second testing campaign was carried out between April and September 2011 on a sample of 94 tires available for sale to EU consumers in several of the largest national tire markets. These tires were all produced in late 2010 and 2011 in 50 factories located in 11 countries, and are being sold in the EU under 51 brand names (these include 31 brands not tested in the first round).

The first round of tire compliance tests the ETRMA conducted took place in March 2011 and followed a similar approach.

Some 10% of the 94 tires sampled this time around were found to be non-compliant, reportedly containing PAH levels prohibited by REACH and therefore, says ETRMA, are being sold illegally on the EU market. Some of the non-compliant tires were made in factories which produced tires that ETRMA found to be non-compliant in the first round.
One factory – which ETRMA named as Shandong Hengfeng Rubber and Plastic Co., located in Guangrao, Shandong Province – was shown to have failed to comply in both rounds, with five of its tires under four different brand names, including both passenger car and truck tires, reportedly exceeding the allowed PAH limit.

ERTMA said eight of the tires – including two Linglong branded, and one each branded by Fullway, Fullrun, Torque, Chengshan, Austone and Boto – came from China, while one Golden Tyre came from Thailand.

Overall, the second test program covered truck, passenger summer and winter, motorcycle and agricultural tire types. As in the first round of testing, all tires in the sample group were purchased from stocks at consumer retail outlets in major EU tire markets (such as Germany, U.K. and Italy).

Initial testing was carried out by ETRMA members. Any tires that presented abnormal PAH results were then sent to a certified independent laboratory and tested according to the standard defined in REACH (ISO 21461).

“The results as well as the full testing reports have been delivered to EU and national authorities. Another 10% still non-compliant on the market means simply that there are manufacturers and importers who do not care about European legislation,” states Francesco Gori, president of ETRMA.
Under the EU’s REACH regulation, high-PAH oils are banned from use in the production of all tires made for motor vehicles produced after Jan. 1, 2010, for subsequent sale in the EU market. The ETRMA data shows that some non-compliant tires made it into Europe. However, some of the tire manufacturers named in the research told Tyres & Accessories that the non-compliant tires are only intended for sale outside Europe and, therefore, must have been imported via parallel markets. This in turn begs the question, should the manufacturers or the distributors be held responsible in these cases?

Nevertheless, while at least three of the named manufacturers have taken this line, ETRMA specifically highlighted that all the Shandong Hengfeng Rubber and Plastic Co. tires failed to comply. In response, representatives of Telford-based Treadsetters, which owns the Torque private brand that ETRMA referred to in its latest survey, reported their surprise at the findings and sent Tyres & Accessories an SGS test certificate demonstrating that its Torque tires are PAH oil-free.

In answer to T&A’s questions, Treadsetters explained that the Torque brand is designed specifically to comply with REACH procedures: “[The] tires purchased are supported by assurances from the manufacturers that they are compliant. The apparent non-compliance of a Torque tire presents us with a predicament for which we are seeking clarification from the manufacturer…the Torque brand is fundamental to our future plans and we will not compromise on its quality. We will ensure that the product conforms/exceeds all current quality standards and there will not be different specifications for different markets,” Treadsetters director Trefor Jones told T&A.
For its part, Cooper offered this comment on the fact that two of its Austone and Chengshan branded truck tire products (both produced at the company’s Cooper Chengshan plant in China) were found to contain PAH oils: “Cooper is a global tire company whose subsidiaries and joint ventures manufacture products for markets that have a variety of requirements and regulations. Products are produced and distributed in accordance with the applicable regulations. While these specific tires were produced by the joint venture company Cooper Chengshan Tire, they were not distributed by Cooper Europe nor intended for sale in European markets.”

LL Tyres Europe commented on the placement on the list of Linglong-branded tires: "In response to the ETRMA recent testing LL Tyres Europe Ltd. would like to state that all tires produced and intended to be distributed and sold in the EU are fully tested and procedures are in place to ensure that they are compliant with all EU legislations (including REACH) since October 2010. LL Tyres Europe Ltd. is not responsible for the illegal import of its products to the European market and strongly questions the methods that ETRMA may have used to gather its information. In addition, LL Tyres Europe Ltd. challenges the legitimacy of these results, as some of the ETRMA member tires appeared to have failed with the European legislation based on the results published."