"There's a lot of product coming in from China, but it's not fair to say all Chinese tires are bad," says Jeff Kreitzman, CEO of American Pacific Industries Inc. (API), one of the country's largest Chinese tire importers.
Kreitzman told moderntiredealer.com that consumers "are going to think twice before buying Chinese tires. However, in the long term I think it will wear well for API and the way we do due diligence with our products."
In the past, API only bought commercial truck tires from Hangzhou Zhongce Rubber Co. Ltd., the company that manufactured up to 450,000 tires that Union, N.J..-based Foreign Tire Sales Inc. (FTS) is recalling under National Highway Traffic Safety Administration orders.
"But we haven't bought anything from them in three or four years."
Hangzhou claims the tires under recall are not defective. FTS says the tires are either missing gum strips or contain insufficient gum strips. Kreitzman says he's in no position to judge the tires' quality "because I haven't tested it. I think the problem boils down to... FTS' ability to manage this type of business.
"Everybody is going to have bad product from time to time. What distinguishes companies is how they handle these problems."
