Interpretation ID: aiam0310
Attorney
Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company
Akron
OH 44316;
Dear Mr. Caine: This is in reply to your letters of February 9 and February 17, 1971 requesting a clarification of the applicability of Part 574, the Tire Identification and Record Keeping regulation, to changeover tires.; In your letters you suggest that, for purposes of Part 574, changeove tires should be considered as used tires, because (1) as a legal matter title to both the vehicle at the time of purchase, (2) tire dealers generally accept changeover tires with less than 100 miles of use as trade-in tires, (3) changeover tires are considered to be used tires by the Federal Trade Commission, and (4) in most cases the tire manufacturer will not have direct contact with the tire dealer selling the changeover tires after they have been traded in by the vehicle purchaser.; We have carefully considered these points, and have determined tha Part 574 is nevertheless applicable to changeover tires.; Part 574 is an integral part of the enforcement scheme for complianc with the standards and the requirements with respect to safety-related defects, and as such its coverage is intended to be coextensive with the applicability of the standards. Section 108(a) of the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act prohibits the manufacture for sale, sale, or offering for sale of tires which do not conform to applicable standards. Although the Act provides that this prohibition shall not apply after the first purchase, it specifically limits this exemption to purchases made 'in good faith for purposes other than resale.' Therefore, the fact that title to original-equipment tires has passed to the vehicle purchaser is not controlling, because in these cases the purchaser intends to exchange the tires--that is, he is purchasing them for the purpose of reselling them, not for using them.; If the standard were not applicable to changeover tires, tire dealer could with impunity alter these tires in a manner that would make them unsafe. A case in point is the known practice whereby dealers alter the sidewalls of tires, often changeover tires, by cutting out a groove and laminating a whitewall surface to the surface of the tire.; Another policy reason for applying Part 574 to changeover tires i that, from a safety standpoint, the person who actually is using the changeover tires on his vehicle should be the one who is notified in the event the tires are suspected of being defective.; We recognize that the Federal Trade Commission does not allo changeover tires to be sold as new tires. That agency is, however, primarily concerned with fraudulent sales, an area of concern much different from ours. The difference in the definitional categories used by the two agencies is, we feel, fully justified by their different missions.; With regard to your point that the manufacturer of the changeover tire would not have direct contact with the dealer who sells the changeover tires, I will simply say that this is true in many situations with regard to tire distribution, and we do not consider it sufficient grounds to make the regulation inapplicable to changeover tires. It does not appear to be an undue hardship for a tire dealer to obtain a form and forward the information concerning the purchaser of the tire to the tire manufacturer.; Sincerely, Lawrence R. Schneider, Acting Chief Counsel