The week of July 27, 2009
Battle continues over the use of remanufactured wheels
by John Yoswick
Fox News affiliates in several markets in late 2007 ran a segment on remanufactured wheels, quoting repairer and automaker concerns about such wheels, as well as insurer convictions that such wheels are safe and have never been linked to any subsequent accidents.
It's a subject that has continued to be discussed within the industry, with suppliers of remanufactured wheels working to build assurances of quality, with opponents continuing to point out potential problems, and with some regulators looking to see if there is a need for further consumer protection actions.
Both opponents and proponents of the use of remanufactured wheels found things to cheer about in the November 2007 Fox News story. A shop owner discusses insurer pressure to use remanufactured despite her liability concerns, and a post-repair appraiser cites his concerns about the structural integrity of such wheels and the fact that customers are often not told by their shop or insurer that they are being used. The story cites service bulletins from a half dozen automakers and Alcoa Aluminum urging shops not to use remanufactured wheels.
But “an insurance company has no incentive to go for a lower costing repair with an unsafe repair part,” Carolyn Gorman of the Insurance Information Institute told Fox News in the segment. “That makes absolutely no sense.”
The station went on to have three remanufactured wheels specified by an insurer for the repair of a Honda minivan tested by Independent Testing Services. Despite clearly visible repaired cracks or other damage to the wheels – including one with damage that prevented the tire from holding air – all three passed structural integrity guidelines for fatigue testing established by the Society of Automotive Engineers, the station reported. (What it didn't mention is that each of the three SAE tests is destructive, so all three tests were conducted but only one each per wheel.) Even the testing service spokesperson acknowledged the irony that a wheel damaged to the point of not being functional in terms of enabling the tire to hold air passed structural integrity testing.
Gorman said the testing shows such wheels are safe and that opponents are pushing new wheels for financial gain. Without pointing out the insurance industries financial stake in the issue, an automaker quoted in the segment said the limited testing does not prove that all repaired wheels “will perform as designed.”
All of which leaves consumers, the news segment concludes, with the choice of either pushing for new wheels – and likely having to pay for the difference for them – or counting on the fact that no one can point to a subsequent accident caused by a remanufactured wheel failure.
During a panel discussion on the topic last November, mandated identification of remanufactured wheels was something that at least some remanufacturers also support, and at least two major wheel remanufacturers said identification labeling is already part of their process. Roger McClellan, chief operating officer for Saturn Wheel, an Indiana-based company that remanufactures 300 wheels per day, said every wheel it sells includes a permanent label listing a serial number and the company's contact number.
A similar label is included on wheels remanufactured by LKQ Corp, according to Jim Devlin, vice president of manufacturing for the company.
McClellan and Devlin outlined the processes their companies use to determine which wheels can be repaired (McClellan said it is only about 10 percent of the “cores” his company reviews) and the steps and testing they conduct to ensure those repairs meet quality guidelines.
McClellan said of more than 45,000 wheels it had shipped in the first nine months of 2008, only 318 (or about seven-tenths of 1 percent) had been returned; about half of those were returned for finish defects.
He and Devlin each offer a list of questions that they suggest should be asked of any remanufactured wheel supplier, including:
• Do you have specified tolerances and parameters in place, and are they recorded by serial number?
• Do you have permanent traceability affixed to the part?
• What is your criteria for eliminating wheels that should not be repaired?
• Do you have liability insurance?
Such questions are important, McClellan said, because while he is confident the processes his company uses result in a good product, “There are people out there that are possibly repairing things that they should not be.”
It's that uncertainty and lack of standards that make many shops nervous, particularly when coupled with automaker statements about the use of remanufactured wheels. Honda, Ford, Toyota and GM, for example, do not approve of any repairs to steel or aluminum wheels that involve welding, bending, straightening, re-machining or adding any new material other than cosmetic coating. Chrysler's statement takes it a step further, warning that remanufactured wheels “can result in a sudden catastrophic wheel failure which could cause loss of control and result in injury or death.”
The problem, Ford's Steve Nantau said, is that even the SAE tests are designed to see if wheels have been manufactured to durability standards, and since they are destructive tests, they are not designed to check to see if a wheel has been repaired adequately.
LKQ's Devlin disagrees.
“We do durability testing quarterly,” he said, saying the company randomly selects wheels for testing from all of its factories. “We started the testing nine years ago. We have never experienced a failure in any test.”
The debate is likely to continue. It's clear, however, that the Fox News story and concerns raised by repairers are forcing remanufactured wheels suppliers to seek some identification labeling requirements or establish other guidelines.
Others would like to see more state regulators follow the lead of the Vermont Department of Motors Vehicles. That agency last year issued a bulletin warning of potential safety issues with the use of reconditioned or remanufactured wheels. The bulletin states that any such wheel should be thoroughly inspected, and perhaps more importantly, that vehicle owners should be notified of “the potential safety risk of placing such a wheel on their vehicle.”
NOTE: This editorial expresses the opinions of its sole author only and does not necessarily reflect the opinions of Autobodyonline, or any of its subsidiary companies, clients, or supporters.
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