U.S. safety officials have ordered a tiny tire importer to recall as many as 450,000 tires that it bought from a Chinese manufacturer and sold to U.S. distributors.

Foreign Tire Sales Inc., of Union, N.J., said an unknown number of the light truck radials it imported since 2002 from Hangzhou Zhongce Rubber Co., of Hangzhou, China, could suffer tread separation, a problem that led to the nation's largest tire recall in 2000.

FTS said an unknown number of the tires it sold were made without a safety feature, called a gum strip, which helps bind the belts of a tire to each other, the company said in a filing to the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Some of the tires had a gum strip about half the 0.6- millimetre width that FTS expected, it said.

According to Transport Canada, Foreign Tire Sales has only one Canadian dealer. A Transport Canada spokeswoman said the federal agency has not received a Notice of Defect from the manufacturer, nor has it received any consumer complaints.

Heather Hopkins, a spokeswoman for U.S. NHTSA, said its enforcement officials spoke to FTS on Monday to "let them know we want a full tire recall to take place."

FTS failed to add a "remedy" in its June 11 filing, which is essentially a description of how a company will notify customers and provide proper consumer compensation, Hopkins said.

FTS attorney Lawrence N. Lavigne said the tires appear to meet federal standards, but could still pose a risk to motorists.

"FTS, at great expense, investigated this," Lavigne said. The company, which has about a half-dozen employees, doesn't have the money to pay for a recall, he said. FTS does not have a warehouse. It has tires shipped directly to distributors, who in turn send them to retail outlets, Lavigne said.

FTS said it believes other importers also sold such tires made by Hangzhou Zhongce. The Chinese company has failed to provide information that would allow FTS to determine exactly how many tires, and which batches, have the problem, Lavigne said.

Tires sold under 4 brand names

According to the filing, the Hangzhou tires at issue were sold under at least four brand names, Westlake, Compass, Telluride and YKS, and in these sizes:

  • LT235/75R-15.
  • LT225/75R-16.
  • LT235/85R-16.
  • LT245/75R-16.
  • LT265/75R-16.
  • LT3X10.5-15.

FTS on May 31 sued Hangzhou in U.S. District Court in Newark, charging that its tests found the tires may fail earlier than those originally provided by Hangzhou, and that a recall would put FTS out of business. The lawsuit seeks unspecified monetary damages and an injunction that would bar Hangzhou products from being imported.