SOUTH Korean tyre manufacturer Kumho Tire is in hot soup for using too much reclaim rubber in its tyres, made at its Tianjin plant in China. The company has recalled the below par tyres. An independent report stated that the defective tyres could have bulges or splits, leading to accidents.
Kumho, which has a capacity of 30 million tyres/year at its factories in Tianjin, Nanjing and Changchun, provides tyres to 35 car models produced by major OEMs including GM, Volkswagen, Hyundai, Dongfeng Peugeot Citroen and homegrown brands like Great Wall Motor and Hafei.
According to the independent report, as much as half of the tyre formulation consisted of recycled material, while the maximum allowed is 25%. While Kumho initially denied the report it subsequently said it had conducted an investigation and found that some of its employees were mixing too much recycled material into the compounds.