Tire valve failure

What NHTSA investigated

Odi opened PE05-003 based on a letter it received referencing multiple incidents of alleged tire valve (valve) failure on police vehicles due to potentially defective valve stems manufactured by eha ventilfabrik (eha), a german valve manufacturer.odi identified myers tire supply (mtsd) as the U.S. Distributor of the valves involved in these incidents.consequently, the manufacturer failure data, shown above, represents the approximate number of TR-413, TR-414, and TR-418 valve (subject component) failures on valves supplied by mtsd.note: the population reflects the number of valves in the subject lot defined below. Although mtsd is the primary supplier of eha tire valves, during PE05-003, odi became aware of 3 secondary eha tire valve distributors (mohawk rubber sales, rema tip top, and westesco).odi received 3 reports of alleged valve failure on valves supplied by 1 of the secondary distributors.odi also received reports of 37 valve failures and 5 minor crashes from the primary westesco dealer.most of the crashes involved incidents where the drivers reported hitting a curb or stationary object, which caused fender or tire rim damage.odi received a total of 3 valve complaints from the other 2 suppliers.odi did not receive any reports of injuries.during PE05-003, odi determined that some of the subject components may have material differences; however, due to the following reasons, odi has decided that further expenditure of agency resources on this investigation is not warranted at this time:- mtsd testing and subject component sampling suggested that the leaking valves came from a suspect lot produced between 12/1/03 and 3/31/04.BY mid-november 2004, mtsd removed almost all of the suspect lot valves remaining in its and its customer?s inventory. -the return patterns of the valves indicated that if the valve was a potential leaker, the leak would occur within a short time after installation.any valves installed from the suspect lot have currently been on vehicles at least 15 to 19 months.-most of the valve failures occurred as a result of a partial crack in the valve resulting in a slow air leak.odi did not have any substantiated reports of rapid air loss from valves distributed by mtsd.it did have some complaints of rapid air loss from one of the secondary suppliers; however, it is not known whether these incidents occurred as a result of a rapid air loss or the driver riding on tires with low air pressure.- due to the lack of traceability on the valve stems, odi was not able to validate whether or not the valve failures reported by the secondary valve distributors came from the subject lot identified by mtsd. Accordingly, this investigation is closed.the closing of this investigation does not constitute a finding by NHTSA that a safety-related defect does not exist.the agency will continue to monitor complaints and other information relating to the alleged defect in the subject vehicles and take further action in the future if warranted.

Vehicles covered

Source

From NHTSA’s investigation file, rebuilt daily. To report a problem with your own vehicle, go to nhtsa.gov/report-a-safety-problem. All open investigations.