In recent years we have become involved in an increasing number of tread separation cases involving defective Chinese passenger and truck tires. In order to learn more about the emerging Chinese tire industry we traveled to the Chinese tire manufacturing center, Qingdao , on several occasions. We toured the region and attended the annual Chinese tire show. We also attended the German tire show in Cologne where over 20 Chinese tire companies were represented as well as all the Western tire manufacturers. We were surprised to find Chinese tire plants were very modern and highly mechanized as the attached videos demonstrate. We have never seen a Western tire plant that compares with these Chinese plants.

The Chinese tire industry has suffered from “growing pains” but they are obviously benefiting from the governments push to improve the quality of Chinese products and are now in a position to compete with Western tire manufacturers many of whom are now having tires built in China. We are still seeing defective Chinese passenger and truck tires but we expect that some major Chinese manufacturers may very well surpass most Western tire manufacturers in design and manufacturing in the near future. There are still some smaller Chinese tire companies that need technical assistance but most of the larger companies are impressive.

If you have a Chinese tire that has suffered a failure we are willing to assist you in evaluating the cause of the failure.