A recent investigation entitled “the Goodyear Affair” by French newspaper Le Monde has made a series of allegations against Goodyear, asserting that the company neglected to commission a formal safety recall for its defective tyres, opting instead for a voluntary exchange programme.
According to the Luxembourg Institute of Standardisation, Accreditation, Safety and Quality of Products and Services (ILNAS), Goodyear contacted the administration back in 2013, as the tyres were manufactured in Luxembourg.
Listen to the report in Luxembourgish:
After the bombshell accusations by Le Monde and the EU’s General Product Safety regulation only coming into force in 2020, many questions remain unanswered, but the Director of ILNAS, Jean-Marie Reiff is clear:
“If, at that time, a safety issue had been detected and mistakes had been made in the production, it would have been the responsibility of the manufacturer to recall the product.”
This responsibility is stipulated in national laws. However, Reiff also clarified that at that time, ILNAS was only responsible for market supervision and general product safety monitoring which did not include truck tyres. There was also no specific regulation on truck tyres, which also meant that there was no Rapid Exchange of Information System (RAPEX) procedure for truck tyres. RAPEX is the EU’s rapid alert system for unsafe consumer products.
Goodyear did seek to contact ILNAS, Claude Liesch from ILNAS points out: “We were approached by the manufacturer, who themselves informed us of the issue, they also proposed their own corrective measure to us.” The corrective measure was the voluntary exchange programme for tyres in the name of customer satisfaction. According to Liesch: “At the time we thought the measure was adequate.”
Between 2013 and 2017, meetings took place between ILNAS and Goodyear on this exchange programme.
Jean-Marie Reiff states:"We were always given some kind of excuse such as yes, there was a problem with three trucks, but that there was no confirmation of it being specifically Goodyear tyres and that an investigation is still pending. After further analysis it turns out, yes, in one case it was a Goodyear tyre unfortunately, but that the cause of the accident has not been confirmed. And so, over the years, new information just kept being revealed.”
Goodyear had discussed a specific incident with ILNAS that took place in 2013. While Goodyear was aware that the driver died of his injuries and that an accident expert identified a fault to the tyre already in autumn 2014, did Goodyear notify this to ILNAS?
According to Reiff, the answer is: “No, of course not.” Instead, Goodyear discussed the conditions of the tyres: “The tyres were not inflated properly, they were too old, it was too warm outside for the tyres and the truck was not placed in the shade and Goodyear in essence argued that with all these conditions, no wonder the tyres blew up. However, they did admit it eventually, when another incident came up. However, statistically, they said, they did not concern themselves with such matters.”
Goodyear then also provided ILNAS with statistics on the progress of the voluntary exchange programme. However, at the time, ILNAS was not mandated with the ability to investigate such information nor were they aware of the victim. Today, things have changed.
“Today, a RAPEX procedure would have been conducted as the tool is available now. And we would have firmly insisted on it too,” Jean-Marie Reiff declared.
Since the new EU regulation on product safety, including truck tyres, came into effect, Goodyear has already issued so-called Safety Alerts, which were formerly known as RAPEX procedures.
Related:Truck tyres manufactured in Luxembourg accused of defects
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