Posted on 04/22/2010 5:20:46 PM PDT by WestSylvanian
A warning to any Freepers who may have had rubber valve stems installed in their tires between August 2006 and May 2008 at Sears or elsewhere. They are potentially some of the 6 million that were sold in the U.S. by Dill Air Control products and others. They may crack and fail allowing slow leaks and a crash hazard. This happened to me on April 11.
An Internet search I did over the weekend revealed that these valve stems were the object of a government and Sears safety recall. I was never informed as a Sears customer and I don't remember this as a news story reported anywhere. Information about this recall and the cheaply made Chinese imports that were constructed of an inferior rubber that can't withstand prolonged exposure to ozone can be found by doing a simple Google search using "Chinese valve stems" or "Sears and valve stems."
I obviously managed to keep my front-wheel-drive Honda under control and survived the blowout. Some Good Samaritans from Virginia stopped and helped me change the tough Yokohama tire which had holes you could stick your fingers through in the sidewalls, shredded belts, and a burned smell--evidence of severe underinflation. The tire managed to hold on long enough for me to get off the road safely.
If you still have rubber valve stems on your car that were purchased during this period, have them inspected and replaced. You have to have the tires deflated and dismounted for the technician to find the identification number on the stem. Sears stems have a stock numbers that are listed in their customer safety notice which is online.
This is dangerous. Apparently there have been numerous accidents and at least one fatality associated with these junk Chinese valve stems causing tire failure at high speeds. They are the subject of a lawsuit.
If anyone has personal experience with this, please respond to this post.
Cheap chinese sh!t will be the death of us.
Literally and figuratively.
Crap, got a tire that I bought new with only 6,000 miles on it. I have put air in about every five days and no one can figure out where the leak is coming from.
Now I will check into the valve stem.
Thanks for posting.
Flat tire ping.
The valve stems were supposedly recalled in 2008. If you bought your valve stems after that, you should be okay unless you’re dealing with some disreputable tire shop.
As far as I know, this has not gotten a notice or news story on any of the networks. Pet food, cadmium in paint on kids’ toys, yes. But not this. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration took my complaint and told me there have been others. So, why no widespread warning if there are some of the 6 million pieces of junk potentially still out there on people’s tires?
I certainly didn’t know about it. And if I didn’t others won’t know either until their tires go flat or they lose their life in an accident.
If you know how to tie them just right, with dental floss to a part of the rim, you may be able to drive one of these leaky stems from Harrisburg,PA to Columbus, OH.
Yep, you’ve got it. That’s one of the the Dill valve stems reported in the recall notice posted on the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s website. And Sear’s must have sold it to me for $2.99 per stem for a piece of junk that’s not worth a nickel.
You’re joking, right? You didn’t actually keep these together with dental floss, did you?
I work for a business that buys chinese made tires for the company vehicles. They are the worst tires I have ever dealt with in my life. I simply cannot believe they even allow these things in the country. They are flat out dangerous tires.
With that said, I believe the new tarrifs on these chinese tires have taken effect because last week I priced 20 tires for our work vehicles and low and behold now the cheapest firestones are less than the chinese brand, so we can buy firestone`s now.
You may want to check the age of your tires while you are at it . It seams that a bunch of companies that have been selling tires as new have been selling tires that although never used are way past their expiration dates (yes tires have expiration dates)and the company you got your valve stems from has been caught selling some of them really old new tires too.
Tires are coded with a date of manufacture . Usually this date is stamped on the back side of the tire so you need to get under the car to see it. If the date on your tires is more than 6 years you should change them (even if you bought them as new as recently as a couple of months ago)
as tires age the adhesive that binds the threads deteriorates and can cause sever blow outs.
Stores have been caught selling these tires as old as 12 years recently and there has been very little info in the news about this.
Here is a link that shows you how to check the date your tires were manufactured.
http://20somethingfinance.com/how-old-are-your-tires-your-safety-may-depend-on-the-answer/
I mount and balance tires for myself and my extended family; it has saved a lot of money over the years and solved many problems. That said... I haven't noticed any difficulties with the Chinese valve stems that I have installed. They cost about twenty cents a piece when you buy them in bulk... they don't last forever. That is why you often replace when you put a new tire on a rim. If this is happening regularly with new tire installations; I would say it might be partially a problem with the people working in tire shops.
Honestly, part of the responsibility of driving is making sure that your vehicle is up to the task. This includes checking your tire pressure on a regular basis. Who among us hasn't had a slow leak? They can be very frustrating and can damage your tires. Chinese valve stems might be responsible for a small percentage of slow leaks but I seriously doubt that they are the leading cause. Most of the Firestone debacle few years ago had more to do with people using improper tire pressures than the quality of their product.
These days too many people take no responsibility for the basic maintenance of their own vehicles. Modern cars and trucks are so good that often you can get away with it... I can't tell you how many slow leaks I have had to fix over the years. Some of them were from leaky valve stems, so far none of those stems were from China. If I damaged a tire from running it under inflated I accepted a portion of the blame myself.
My guess is that this lawsuit is just one more ambulance chasing attorney trying to make a bundle off what is basically a nothing deal. I expect to see the price of valve stems go up in the not so distant future. The lesson for the rest of us is to check our tire pressure more regularly.
I now have four new tires that I bought at Sears before I knew that the valve stems where at fault. I told Sears today I want to be compensated for the four tires I bought because I just wanted to get back home safely and was scared that the other tires would fail on the interstate. So far, they’re only willing to pay for two, since, according to them, I could have outfitted the car with two brand new tires and left two four-year-old tires still on the car.
I’ve read that’s not a good idea to have mismatched tires. And why should I have to pay for anything? The defective valve stems were bought at Sears. They didn’t warn me that these stems were hazardous and should be checked and replaced immediately. I drove around on defective Chinese junk. I could have been killed. Others have been when their tires failed due to unsuspected leaking valve stems.
Check your rubber valve stems if you bought them between mid-2006 and mid-2008.
You don’t know what you’re talking about. I checked the tire pressure the day before I left on the trip. I regularly check tire pressures. The left tire had gone flat only three weeks before. When I checked it with a pressure gauge, I found it only had 17 pounds in it. In the process of applying the pressure gauge, I felt the valve stem start leaking and hissing like crazy. The thing was split at the base as if it had been cut. The outer rubber coating cracked under the pressure of the gauge.
Do a Google search. Use the terms “Sears valve stems.” You’ll see their customer advisory showing a defective stem. They admit the stem is defective. They say where they got the stems. The stems were made with inferior rubber in China. Check the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s website. They issued a recall on the stems as defective in 2008. The stems were manufactured in 2006.
And I take care of my cars. My Honda is fifteen years old with 152,000 miles on it, and with careful maintenance, it’s still running strong.
And I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say you’re concerned when a tire goes flat at 70 miles an hour. Hope it never happens to a know-it-all like you. The people who are suing lost their father whose SUV flipped over and killed him when his Chinese trash stem failed.
You are going to have to forgive me however, because I am having a hard time following the sequence of events in your last post. “The left tire had gone flat only three weeks before. When I checked it with a pressure gauge, I found it only had 17 pounds in it. In the process of applying the pressure gauge, I felt the valve stem start leaking and hissing like crazy.” So it went flat three weeks before and you didn't figure out why? Then you found it had only 17 pounds and the valve stem was leaking? And then apparently you drove it and it blew out on you at 70 mph? What am I missing here?
I have seen a lot of Chinese valve stems. I have never seen one that fall apart as you have described, so you are right I don't know what you are talking about. I have no doubt that there are defective ones out there. They cost me an end user twenty cents a piece, with markups that means some Chinese factory is probably producing them for around five cents a piece. I doubt whether their quality control program is their top priority.
I have had a front tire blow out at 70 mph in my fully loaded camper van. Fortunately, it didn't cause me to lose control of my vehicle. In 35 years of driving I have had a number of equipment failures... some of them could have been prevented if I had been more vigilant, some were caused by wear and tear, some were caused by road hazards. I have responded to a lot of car accidents over the last twenty years. Fortunately, very few were caused by equipment failure. Drivers are the cause of somewhere around 99% of motor vehicle accidents.
Congratulations on keeping your Honda for 15 years and putting a 152,000 miles on it. Currently our best car is a 1999 Buick Regal GS with a 185,000 miles on it. It still looks and drives almost like new. Our oldest car is a 1941 Cadillac and guess what... it looks and drives like new also. So keep up the good work! And sorry again to have upset you.
If I'm not mistaken, the valve stems can be replaced without dismounting the tire. I think that I'd skip the dismounting and just replace the stems if I had any concerns about the possibility of having them in my wheels.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBikGAIzArM
WestSylvanian my statements here were never intended to say that there are not defective Chinese valve stems out there, only that I have not had any more difficulty with valve stems in recent years despite most of them now being made in China. I think it is great that this issue has been brought up. When someone checks their tire pressure they should also take a look at their tire and valve stem condition.
Also if you find that one tire is much lower than the rest you should try to discover why. In my experience most slow leaks are from a nail or some other item that has caused a small hole. Often the nail will be found before the head has been worn off. In most cases if you pull the nail out with a pair of pliers the leak won't be slow any more. ;)
I am a little surprised that Sears offered to replace both the tire that had been damaged and the undamaged one on the opposite side. That is more accommodating than any tire shop that I have had experience with has been. Demanding a complete set of new tires after having one go bad seems unreasonable to me. I doubt whether this is actually covered in anyone’s road hazard warranty anywhere.
WestSylvanian you are correct that theoretically it is best two have four brand new matched tires. If you rotate them frequently you might be able to keep the wear fairly even among the four. However by the time a set of tires needs to be replaced, even the tires of the most conscientious drivers nearly always seem to have significant differences in the wear patterns between tires. In my own case we make a left turn onto the main highway most of the time. My wife's car has a supercharger and she manages to wear the the same drive tire down repeatedly.
In practice the front and back tires have far different demands placed on them when braking and having two newer matched tires on the back or front will have functionally no ill effect on the braking distance of your car. In high performance tires with directional tread you are unable to rotate in the traditional sense. You just alternate back and forth between the front and rear. I would argue that anytime you add new tires to the front or the rear you will be increasing your car's overall braking ability. Throwing away three perfectly good tires because you had a problem with one is an extreme waste of resources.
Because of your post I learned something new. The following video shows replacing a valve stem without pulling it through from the inside of the wheel. Basically you pull the valve stem into a tube and then punch it into the wheel when the tube is held up to the opening. It looks like another possible case of American ingenuity.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AuwEG54yEA8&feature=related
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