ID: nht76-5.3

DATE: 04/12/76

FROM: AUTHOR UNAVAILABLE; S. P. Wood for F. Berndt; NHTSA

TO: Masoaka-Ishikawa and Associates, Inc.

TITLE: FMVSS INTERPRETATION

TEXT: This responds to your February 24, 1976, request for affirmation that a particular Takata Kojyo test procedure for applying force to a continuous loop Type 2 belt system "meet[s] the requirements set forth in Standard 209, Seat Belt Assemblies."

Section S4.4 of Standard No. 209 sets forth the requirements of the standard for assembly performance. Section S5.3(b) sets forth test methods that would be used in a determination of whether a Type 2 seat belt assembly conforms to the requirements of S4.4. Takata Kojyo's obligation as a manufacturer is to ensure that its certification of compliance is not false or misleading in a material respect, and that it has exercised due care in manufacturing to conform to Standard No. 209 (15 U.S.C. @ 1397(b)(2)). A manufacturer is not required to follow specifically the test procedures of the standards, but to ascertain, in the exercise of due care, that its product will conform to the standard's requirements when it is tested by the stated methods.

From your description, you have modified the existing procedures by use of a clamp to ensure that all force is applied to the lower torso webbing and hardware or, alternatively, to the upper torso webbing and hardware. While it appears that the comtemplated test procedure may evidence the exercise of due care to certify compliance with S4.4, the NHTSA cannot approve a manufacturer's test procedure as the basis of due care in advance of the actual events that underlie certification. It is the manufacturer's responsibility to utilize sound engineering judgement in the exercise of due care.

MASOKA-ISHIKAWA AND ASSOCIATES, INC.

February 24, 1976

Dr. James B. Gregory Administrator National Highway Traffic Safety Administration U.S. Department of Transportation

On behalf of Takata Kojyo Co., Ltd., a manufacturer of seat belt assemblies whose products are used in automobiles marketed in the United States, we seek affirmation from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration that the testing procedures for "continuous-loop" seat belt assemblies as shown in the attached illustrations meet the requirements set forth in Standard 209, Seat Belt Assemblies.

The proposed Takata Kojyo test procedures as shown in Figures 3 and 4 are specifically designed for Takata Kojyo's newly developed energy-absorbing/conventional webbing, continuous-loop seat belt assembly.

Figure 1 shows Takata Kojyo's continuous-loop seat belt assembly. Figure 2 illustrates the manner in which Takata Kojyo's combination energy-absorbing/conventional seat belt webbing is manufactured in an unique continuous weaving process. The continuously type webbing for the lap portion and the energy-absorbing webbing for the upper torso portion in an especially advanced continuous-loop seat belt assembly which provides markedly improved occupant protection.

Takata Kojyo Co., Ltd., No. 10 Mori Building, 28 Sakuragawa-cho, Nishikubo, Shiba, Minato-Ku, Tokyo, Japan, is a privately held Japanese corporation engaged in the manufacture of seat belt assemblies. Takata Kojyo does not directly market its automotive safety products in the United States. Its products are sold to manufacturers whose automobiles are sold in the United States. Japanese automobiles which use Takata Kojyo seat belt assemblies include, but are not limited to, Toyota, Datsun, Mazda, Dodge Colt and Honda. Takata Kojyo is the largest supplier of seat belt webbing in Japan, accounting for the more than 80 per cent of the market.

We respectfully request your prompt reply to our inquiry as to whether the test procedures shown in the attached illustrations fulfill the requirements of Standard 209.

T. Albert Yamada

CC: S. ISHIKAWA

Fig. 3 Proposed test method. Takata Kojyo Type II Bedt System (Continuous Loop)

Fig. 4 Proposed test method. Takata Kojyo Type II Seat Belt (Continuous Loop)

(Graphics omitted)

Fig. 1 Takata Kojyo Continous Loop Seat Belt Assembly

Fig. 2 Takata Kojyo Energy-absorbing webbing. Manufactured in a continuous weaving process.

(Graphics omitted)

ID: nht76-5.30

DATE: 04/12/76

FROM: AUTHOR UNAVAILABLE; Stephen P. Wood; NHTSA

TO: Cameo Industries

COPYEE: STEPHEN P. WOOD FOR FRANK A. BERNDT -- NHTSA

TITLE: FMVSR INTERPRETATION

TEXT: This is in response to your March 17, 1976, letter concerning reporting forms for the mini motor homes that you contemplate building.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) issues Federal motor vehicle safety standards to which motor vehicles must conform. In addition, the agency requires that the manufacturer certify that the vehicles as completed comply with applicable safety standards. A pamphlet summarizing the Federal motor vehicle safety standards is enclosed, along with a copy of the regulations governing vehicle certification. The safety standards themselves are set forth in their entirety in Part 571 of Title 49 of the Code of Federal Regulations.

The NHTSA also investigates safety-related defects and noncompliances with safety standards in motor vehicles and items of motor vehicle equipment. If the agency or the manufacturer determines that a safety-related defect or noncompliance exists, the manufacturer is obligated to notify the vehicle owners and remedy the problem without charge. A copy of the provisions of the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act of 1966, as amended, which deal with the responsibilities of manufacturers for safety-related defects and noncompliances in their motor vehicles or items of vehicle equipment (15 U.S.C. @@ 1411-1420) is also enclosed. Further, 49 CFR Part 573, Defect Reports, requires the submission to the NHTSA of information reports concerning defects. A copy of this regulation is enclosed. No particular reporting form is required.

In addition, a new manufacturer of motor vehicles is required by 49 CFR Part 566, Manufacturer Identification, to submit certain information to the NHTSA not more than 30 days after he begins manufacture. A copy of this regulation is also enclosed.

SINCERELY,

To: Office of Chief Counsel NHTSA

From: Cameo Industries

Subject: Motor home reports

MESSAGE:

We are contemplating building mini motor homes and are therefore interested in the reporting forms to be made on these vehicles. We would like to know what kind of monthly, quarterly etc. forms need to be filled out. Could your office send us a list of these forms? Thank you very much for your help on this matter.

Date 3/17/76

Signed Sam F Lancaster President

ID: nht76-5.31

DATE: 11/01/76

FROM: CHARLES E. DUKE FOR JOHN W. SNOW -- NHTSA

TO: House of Representatives

TITLE: FMVSR INTERPRETATION

TEXT: This is in response to your September 20, 1976, letter concerning record keeping with respect to new passenger cars that are damaged prior to retail sale.

I would like to clarify the discussion of record requirements in my September 14, 1976, letter to you. While the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) does not require vehicle manufacturers to create records of safety-related repairs that are made to new motor vehicles prior to sale, we do require the retention of all such records that are in fact created by the manufacturer. Through such records, the NHTSA can in many cases trace the history of vehicles suspected of containing safety-related defects. We have not to date found a safety need sufficient to justify further requirements specifically regarding identification of the vehicles in question.

A copy of the record retention regulation, 49 CFR Part 576, is enclosed for your convenience.

ID: nht76-5.32

DATE: 12/31/76

FROM: AUTHOR UNAVAILABLE; Mark Schwimmer; NHTSA

TO: Memorandum to interpretations file

TITLE: FMVSR INTERPRETATION

TEXT: SUBJECT: TREAD LABEL FORMAT: UNIFORM TIRE QUALITY GRADING STANDARDS

On December 16, 1976, I received a telephone call from Mr. Calvin Schaffner of B.F. Goodrich Co. (216 379-3470) concerning Figure 2 of the Uniform Tire Quality Grading Standards, 49 CFR @ 575.104. That figure depicts the format of the tread label required by the rule.

Mr. Schaffner referred to Figure 2 as it appears in Notice 21 (41 FR 54205; December 13, 1976). I explained that, because Notice 21 is a notice of proposed rulemaking rather than final rulemaking, the inclusion of the warnings in the traction and temperature grades is not yet certain. I further explained, however, that (i) in all other respects, the depiction of Figure 2 in that notice was correct; (ii) the appearance of Figure 2 was incorrect in both Notices 17 and 18, due to printing errors at the Federal Register, and (iii) this point would be clarified in a final rulemaking notice.

ID: nht76-5.33

DATE: 06/22/76

FROM: ROBERT L. CARTER FOR JAMES B. GREGORY -- NHTSA

TO: American Motors Corporation

COPYEE: STEVE JONAS -- AMC; ARCH DOTY -- MVMA; GEORGE NIELD -- AIA

TITLE: FMVSR INTERPRETATION

TEXT: This responds to your telephone request of June 17, 1976, for confirmation that @ 575.101 of Part 575, Consumer Information, was recently revised to specify vehicle stopping distance information based on stops that may include wheel lockup under the conditions allowed by Standard No. 105-75, Hydraulic Brake Systems. You note that the text of @ 575.101(c)(5), and the accompanying illustration in Figure 1 of the section, describe the information provided as performance achieved "without locking the wheels."

Your interpretation of the requirements of @ 575.101 is correct. In amending Part 575 to permit the use of stopping distance data collected in tests for Standard No. 105-75, the agency made all changes it believed necessary to provide for the use of stopping distance information gathered in connection with Standard No. 105-75 (41 FR 1066, January 6, 1976). The reference to "without locking the wheels" should have been deleted from the text of @ 575.101(c)(5) and Figure 1. A correcting amendment will be issued shortly.

The correction of an omission from the text of the first paragraph of @ 575.101(c) will also be made at that time. In the last sentence of that paragraph, the concluding option (as published in the Federal Register) should read "under the procedures specified in paragraph (d) of this section and the conditions specified in paragraph (e) of this section."

ID: nht76-5.34

DATE: 09/24/76

FROM: AUTHOR UNAVAILABLE; Allan J. Kam; NHTSA

TO: Memorandum to interpretations file

TITLE: FMVSR INTERPRETATION

TEXT: SUBJECT: UNIFORM TIRE QUALITY GRADING: TELEPHONE CALL FROM CHARLES McCARTY OF B.F. GOODRICH ON 9/22/76

On September 22, 1976, I received a telephone call from Charles McCarty of B.F. Goodrich. He asked about data which he said was referred to in the court's recent decision. When I asked specifically where in the court's decision, he referred to page 21, paragraph 2, which concerns the remand on course monitoring tires. I told Mr. McCarty that nothing has been published in that regard in the Federal Register since the court's decision, and that I would prefer not to offer any predictions because the matter was still in litigation.

I told him that, as he may know, the tire companies had filed a petition for rehearing on Septermber 16, and thus they had chosen to keep the matter in litigation. Therefore, I said, it would be inappropriate for me to discuss the matter with him directly rather than with the attorneys for his company in the litigation. He said that he understood.

ID: nht76-5.35

DATE: 11/02/76

FROM: AUTHOR UNAVAILABLE; Frank A. Berndt; NHTSA

TO: Yokohama Tire Corp.

TITLE: FMVSR INTERPRETATION

TEXT: I am writing to confirm your October 15,1976, telephone conversation with Mark Schwimmer of this office, concerning the effective dates of the Uniform Tire Quality Grading Standards (UTQGS) (49 CFR Part 575.104).

As Mr. Schwimmer explained, (i) the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has not yet established new effective dates for the UTQGS regulation; (ii) when the new effective dates are established, they will be announced in the Federal Register; and (iii) the interval between the announcement of the effective dates and the dates themselves will be sufficient to allow manufacturers to prepare for compliance with the regulation.

For your convenience, an information sheet entitled "Where to Obtain Motor Vehicle Safety Standard and Regulations" is enclosed.

ID: nht76-5.36

DATE: 05/11/76

FROM: VETTER FOR JAMES B. GREGORY -- NHTSA

TO: Ford Motor Company

TITLE: FMVSR INTERPRETATION

TEXT: I am writing to inform you that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) will, for a limited time, refrain from enforcing one portion of 49 CFR Part 575, Consumer Information Regulations.

Subpart B of Part 575 specifies certain items of consumer information that apply to motor vehicles and their tires. Section 575.6 in Subpart A requires this information to be delivered to first purchasers (paragraphs (a) and (b)), made available to prospective purchasers (paragraph (c)) and submitted to the NHTSA (paragraph (d)). In particular, @ 575.6(d) requires that:

Each manufacturer of motor vehicles . . . shall submit to the Administrator 10 copies of the information specified in Part B of this part that is applicable to the vehicles or tires offered for sale, at least 30 days before that information is first provided for examination by prospective purchasers pursuant to paragraph (c) of this section.

I understand that the strike by the United Rubber Workers has, by cutting off the supply of new tires, created an emergency situation within the motor vehicle industry, making it difficult for a manufacturer to know more than several days before it completes a vehicle which tires will be available for installation on the vehicle. I understand further that the provision of such information to the NHTSA 30 days before it is made available to prospective purchasers has become virtually impossible.

In view of the impracticability under the current circumstances of the 30-day-notice requirement, the NHTSA has concluded that enforcement of the requirement at this time is inappropriate. Accordingly, with respect to vehicles offered for sale during the strike and the 60-day period following its settlement, the NHTSA will refrain from enforcing the 30-day-notice requirement in @ 575.6(d). Submittals of information to the agency must continue to be made, however, not later than the time the information is made available to prospective purchasers. With respect to vehicles that will be offered for sale at the expiration of the 60-day period, the NHTSA expects to begin receiving submittals after the thirtieth day following settlement of the strike.

Please note that the requirements of paragraphs (a), (b), and (c) of @ 575.6, as well as Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard No. 110, Tire Selection and Rims -- Passenger Cars, are not affected by this letter.

ID: nht76-5.37

DATE: 03/03/76

FROM: AUTHOR UNAVAILABLE; Richard B. Dyson; NHTSA

TO: Hogan & Hartson

TITLE: FMVSR INTERPRETATION

TEXT: I am writing in response to your letter of December 5, 1975, and your subsequent conversation with Mark Schwimmer of this office, concerning a vehicle manufacturer's duty to provide consumer information pursuant to 49 CFR 575.104, Uniform Tire Quality Grading Standards.

Your letter included a sample information sheet for the model 240D with Dunlop 185 SR 14 tires. For that model equipped with those tires, the format of the sheet would meet the requirements of @ 575.104(d)(1)(iii) for information to be furnished to the first purchaser of a new motor vehicle. Similarly, if the vehicle is offered for sale only with those tires, the format would meet the requirements of @ 575.104(d)(1)(iii) for information to be furnished to prospective purchasers.

Please note that the stay of this regulation, issued last August by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, is still in effect.

ID: nht76-5.38

DATE: 05/20/76

FROM: AUTHOR UNAVAILABLE; John Womack; NHTSA

TO: Earl M. Hoosline

TITLE: FMVSR INTERPRETATION

TEXT: This is in response to your letter of April 11, 1976, requesting information concerning your daughter's purchase of a 1972 Plymouth whose odometer was allegedly rolled back.

The Motor Vehicle Information and Cost Savings Act (Pub. L. 92-513) prohibits alteration of the mileage indicated on an odometer and requires that a written disclosure of a vehicle's mileage be provided by the seller to the purchaser at the time the ownership of a vehicle is transferred. If the correct mileage is unknown, however, the Act requires a statement to that effect to be furnished in written form to the buyer. There is no requirement that these disclosure statements be retained by either the transferor or the transferee.

Violation of any of the above requirements may subject the violator to civil liability where his actions were intended to defraud the purchaser. The Act makes available to the buyer a remedy in the amount of $ 1,500 or treble damages, whichever is greater. To obtain this remedy, section 409 of the Act provides that a private civil action be instituted in State or Federal court.

If a vehicle has traveled over 100,000 miles and this is not reflected on the odometer, the odometer disclosure statement should indicate that the mileage registered on the odometer does not reflect the true number of miles the vehicle has driven. If the suggested Federal form is used in making the disclosure, the following statement should be checked:

"I further state that the actual mileage differs from the odometer reading for reasons other than odometer calibration error and that the actual mileage is unknown."

However, since the actual mileage would be known in the case where the odometer had simply passed the 100,000 mark, the seller should state what the actual mileage is.

For your information, I am forwarding copies of the relevant portions of the Act and the disclosure requirements, in addition to the consumer information pamphlet on odometers.

SINCERELY,

DEAR SIRS:

Legal April, 11, 1976

Would like a little information on odometer tampering law: Daughter bought a 197 plymouth (SECOND HAND) actual miles on odometer card 45,800 miles. Drove 2000 miles and had to have over hauled mechanic stated the car had much over the named mileage how far back does odometer check have to be kept -- my understand, was owned & sold by at least two dealers before us. If the car has gone over the 100, thousand mark does that all have to be shown on paper, please let me know by returned mail if any information would be helpful to me & others

Thank you

Earl M. Hoosline