Tires, Toothpaste and Toy Recalls, Oh My! Chinese Cars Coming Soon

About the only thing Chinese that hasn’t had to be recalled in the U.S. in recent weeks are the egg rolls from my local Chinese restaurant.

The latest fiasco was the recall of 255,000 Chinese made tires imported here for trucks, vans, and SUVs because, well, tires tend not to run all that well when the tread decides to separate. Such a problem is much better to discover when the car is sitting in your driveway than when passing a semi on the interstate at 80 mph. So while upsetting, the recall is a good move.

But the problem remains: products made in China account for some 60 percent of all consumer product recalls in the United States this year. There are promises that in just a couple of years, inexpensive ($10,000) Chinese made mini-cars are going to be roaming the highways and byways of the U.S.A., so high mileage-minded motorists can conserve fuel and their savings.

We are going to trust the same folks who can’t keep tires from falling apart to send us cars that don’t fall apart?

In just a matter of months 83 types of Mattel Fisher-Price toys had to be recalled for excessive lead in the toys’ paint. There was pesticide residue in fresh ginger shipped here, not to mention salmonella contaminated snack foods, and toothpaste that rather than containing a whitener contained ethelene glycol or anti-freeze. What, to keep it from freezing on our teeth in the winter?

Add to that the recalls for lead paint on toy wooden trains for kids; harmful residue on eel and catfish; toxic proteins in cat and dog food that poisoned pets; mislabeling of fish in which people thought it was harmless monkfish and didn’t know it really was puffer fish with deadly toxins.

“If a consumer has been impacted personally by one of the recalls, a kid got sick from a toy with too much lead paint or a pet got sick or died from the contaminated pet food, it is reasonable to expect they are going to take a stand and not buy a car made in China when they get here,” said Rebecca Lindland, senior auto analyst for Global Insight.

“If you buy a computer and it goes bad, you dispose of it in the garbage along the street. You can’t do that with cars,” she said.

Before the Chinese start selling cars here, they need to clean up their act—and their fish, vegetables, pet food, toothpaste and tires.

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255,000 Chinese Tires Recalled (KickingTires)