Product Liability - Written by Beasley Allen on Tuesday, July 17, 2007 7:19 - 0 Comments

RV Tire Litigation Update

We continue to learn of failures with the Goodyear G159 275/70 RV tire. In the past few months, I have written about design and manufacturing defects that make this tire unsafe for use on larger Class A recreational vehicles. Although Goodyear obviously bears the responsibility for the G159 tire failures and resulting injuries and deaths, the RV manufacturers are also responsible for failing to take adequate steps through proper engineering and testing to assure that the 275/70 is in fact appropriate for their RVs.

Most, if not all, of the RV manufacturers employ virtually no engineering in the selection of the tires for their RV’s. This includes the G159 275/70. In our case, not one licensed engineer played a role in selecting the 275/70 and assuring that the 275/70 was appropriate for use on their Class A motor home. In fact, when our client’s RV was made, the manufacturer did not employ a single automotive engineer. Most of the individuals involved with the selection of the 275/70 tire for RVs have sales backgrounds.

It’s also most significant that the RV manufacturers perform little to no testing to assure the tires are safe on the RV’s they sell. Most of the automobile industry performs numerous tests to assure that the products they sell meet at least minimum standards. In the cases we have handled, none of the RV manufacturers performed any real world testing, nor did they do failure testing or durability testing to assure that the RV tires are safe and are appropriate for the large Class A motor homes. In almost all cases, including ours, the RV manufacturers failed to perform any testing to assure that the G159 275/70 was safe for use at highway speeds on their RVs




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