Actually the proper term from the nuclear cold war drill of the 1950s is “duck, cover and roll.” However, the “roll” part seems inappropriate today as Online Tire Review (yes, there really is such a website – www.tirereview.com) broke the news yesterday that Foreign Tire Sales (FTS), the New Jersey importer at the center of a 450,000-tire recall of China-made tires scheduled to begin recalling tires today, will quickly run out of money.

While FTS said it will replace as many of the tires as it can, it will be forced to declare bankruptcy after only replacing approximately 10% of the tires impacted.

Background story: Last week, the NHTSA ordered FTS to recall the light truck/SUV radials produced by China-based Hangzhou Zhongce Rubber Co. Apparently, the tires were either missing gun strip or it was deemed insufficient. The failure by the manufacturer to place these adhesive strips between the tire belts caused the tires to degrade and eventually separate, resulting in fatal crashes. Some of the brand names under which the tires have been sold include Compass, Telluride, Westlake and YKS.

Tires which have been marketed as designed to last 40,000 miles are actually coming apart after only 25,000 miles. Some tests allegedly have found that the Zhongce tires also had dangerously thin inner liners, permitting air to leak and damage the outer walls of the tires.

Commentary: It gets worse. The lawyer behind the recall (he sued FTS, who then notified NHTSA, who then ordered the recall) say that there may be five other similar distributors of these tires… and that there are up to five million on the road. Read about in the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Memo to procurement: when they said buy “exploding Chinese fireworks for the holiday” they did not mean for you to confuse “fire” with “tire.”