Tire Brand

Me Again wrote:
Come down to Arizona and spend some time with snowbirds that travel thousands of miles in a few days to get here and back home on these cheap ST tires and you will find a very high percent of failures. In the fall they are easy to identify, has the side of their trailer is still torn up.

What is the percentage of snowbird tire failures? One in ten? Come on guys, enough with the emotional posts, lets put down some facts and learn from it. What is a "cheap ST tire", are you going by country of manufactures, brand name, the price of the tire?

I did some simple research and discovered there is no US government mandated tire testing requirements. The closest I found is a recommendation from the NHTSA.

Light Vehicle Tire Standard
The agency proposes that a new tire standard FMVSS No. 139 apply to tires used on passenger cars, multipurpose passenger vehicles, trucks, buses and trailers with a gross vehicle weight rating of 10,000 pounds or less. It would apply to all P-metric and LT tires up to load range E, and would not apply to motorcycles.

www.nhtsa.gov/cars/rules/rulings/UpgradeTire/Econ/TireUpgradeII.html


Lack of Government Testing
Contrary to what many believe, tires are not subjected to any government testing, inspection or approval before they are sold. The tire industry is entirely self-regulated when it comes to design criteria. There are government regulations applicable to the industry, but the only government regulations that even arguably address tire safety are a set of wheel tests that were originally developed decades ago when tires did not even have steel belts to separate. The tests involve the tire company running a few sample tires for a matter of hours on a test wheel at varying speeds and loads, and also subjecting a few tires to some basic puncture resistance protocols. Determining whether a given tire design/production is safe is left entirely to the tire companies.

www.avvo.com/legal-guides/ugc/general-information-about-tire-testing-and-regulation