Consumer Reports uncovers counterfeit tires case

HILTON HEAD, S.C.—Consumer Reports, the nation's largest independent consumer publication, annually buys tires at random to test and rate for its readers.

But last year, strictly at random, Consumer Reports uncovered a flagrant case of tire counterfeiting, the publication's tire program manager told attendees of the 31st annual Clemson University Global Tire Industry Conference.

“We didn't say, "Let's go out and find some counterfeit tires,' “ Eugene Peterson said in his presentation at the conference, held April 15-17 at Hilton Head, S.C. “We said, "Let's test some tires,' and one of those tires just happened to be counterfeit.”

Each year Consumer Reports rates different categories of tires, buying 20 in each category with its own funds for testing at its facility in Connecticut, according to Peterson.

“All the products we test, we buy, and that makes us unique,” he said. “I buy the tires, talk to the manufacturers and find out which tires should be evaluated.”

Evaluating 20 all-season light truck tires in 2014, Peterson chose from among available models a relatively unknown one, the Pegasus Advanta SUV. The tire, he said, was manufactured by Qingdao Yellow Sea Rubber Co., part of China National Tire & Rubber Co., which is a subsidiary of ChemChina.

American Pacific Industries of Scottsdale, Ariz., is the importer and trademark owner of Pegasus Advanta SUV tires, he said.

In the test results issued in July 2014 on ConsumerReports.org and the following November in the magazine, CR ranked the Pegasus Advanta dead last in its all-season truck tire ratings.

“We found the Advanta had average tread life of 44,500 miles compared with an average of 71,000 miles for all the tires in the group,” he said. The tire had good dry braking and anti-hydroplaning features, Peterson said, but fell down in several other areas including snow traction.

Shortly after the ratings were published, API wrote CR, taking issue with the magazine's remarks on the Advanta's snow traction. At API's request, Peterson sent API the Advanta tires CR tested.

“And that was followed by a request to remove the tire from CR's ratings,” he said. “When I asked them why, they said, "It's not our tire.' “

The dates of manufacture in the tires' identification numbers, API said, proved they were not genuine Advanta tires. All of the tires had been manufactured in 2012, and the last Advanta tires API authorized were manufactured in December 2011.

Soon after the last genuine Advanta tires were produced, the Qingdao Yellow Sea factory was torn down, according to Peterson.

“Many molds from that factory went missing, and apparently they were moved to other facilities in China,” he said.

Dallas-based Economy Tire Inc. bought 400 to 500 of the bogus tires, and in turn sold some of those to the online retailer tires-easy.com, Peterson said.

“The good news is that no consumer safety complaints about the counterfeit tires were reported to NHTSA (the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration) as of November 2014,” he said. “The bad news is that API and tires-easy.com claim no consumer responsibility. On the other hand, they were both victims of the counterfeiting, the same as consumers who bought the tires.”

ETI did not answer CR's query about whether ETI was the importer of record, which would make it responsible for a recall of Advanta tires, Peterson said. However, ETI did confirm it is no longer selling Advanta tires, he said.

NHTSA told Peterson that it works closely with its federal partners to investigate counterfeit tires. The agency advised consumers to be cautious when they see tires being sold online at very low prices.

The main agency in charge of investigating counterfeit products and enforcing anti-counterfeiting laws is the Immigrations and Customs Enhancement within the Department of Homeland Security, Peterson said. ICE essentially gives the same advice as NHTSA, he said.

The International Anti-Counterfeiting Association advises consumers to mind what it calls “The Three P's,” Peterson said.

“The first P is price,” he said. “If the price looks too good to be true, it probably is.

“The second P is packaging,” he said. “If the product has no packaging, or if the packaging is of poor quality or contains printing errors, it is possibly counterfeit.

“Finally, the third P is place,” Peterson said. “If you see a suspicious-looking tire in a store, ask yourself if you would expect this product to be sold at this store. If it's an online website, counterfeiters often steal pictures and formatting. Check out our FAQs, or contact us on our web pages.”

He said a vast majority of the $1 trillion in counterfeit goods—including $45 billion in auto parts alone—comes from China.