Dunlop Sportmax Q3+ tire owners have some worry today, as Sumitomo Rubber USA (the maker of Dunlop motorcycle tires) has issued a recall on its popular sport bike tire because of air pockets that may have formed during the tires’ curing process.
Sumitomo says that it has contained most of the affected 120/70ZR17 58W Sportmax Q3+ tires, which were made between April 27th and May 4th of this year, and that only four to seven tires need to be recalled from the consumer market.
Accordingly, Sumitomo will notify potentially affected Dunlop retailers and customers, and Sumitomo will offer replacement tires free of charge. The recall is expected to begin during June 2017. Concerned owners may contact Dunlop Motorcycle Tires at 1-800-845-8378.
After the jump, there is a timeline from Sumitomo on its discovery and quarantine process for the Dunlop Sportmax Q3+ tires. It makes for an interesting read regarding the internal QA process at the Dunlop tire facility.
- 05/04/17: Inspector identified issue that Quality determined might be a possible undercure. Tires were x-rayed to confirm porosity. Cure charts were reviewed and there was no evidence of any cure issue in the trace. It was determined that this condition was not easily identifiable, and a quality hold was issued for the entire production run. The press was shut down, and it was believed that everything was contained
- 05/05/17: Further studies were conducted with another tire in the press, and the same condition existed. These study tires were scrapped. Tires from the previous production code were found to have no porosity through x-ray. The tires were cured on a different press, studied, and found no porosity. Additional production tires were sent through x-ray and were found to be free of porosity.
- 05/18/17: It was discovered that this tire was not held as previously indicated and that some were shipped to distributors. Distributors were alerted that there was a potential quality issues in this code and were instructed to verify their inventories to determine if any tires were sold.
- 05/19/17: Arrangements were made with the distributors to conduct a complete review and sort in the distribution centers.
- 05/21/17: Teams from Sumitomo were deployed for a Monday morning sort at the distribution centers.
- 05/22/17: A total of 7,380 tires were inspected, and 389 suspect non-conforming tires were contained. There remains 1,233 tires to be inspected, of which 1,053 are still in transit.
- After an initial internal investigation, it was determined that a total of 514 tires were non-conforming. Of the initial 514, 90 were contained internally, 28 were confirmed as scrap, and 389 were found in the field and contained. There remains a total of 3 to 7 tires unaccounted, mainly because there were 4 tires on the report that could not be accurately identified based on the notations.
Source: NHTSA
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