Statement from Dill Air Controls
“Slow leaks in tire valves are not new to the industry, sometimes the valve core can leak, dirt can get in the valve causing a leak, valve could be installed improperly resulting in a leak, rubber can crack over time with exposure to temperature extremes, humidity, ozone, etc. With that said, we are encouraging people to inspect their valve stems for cracks no matter who the manufacturer is. Our testing shows us that the bad part will crack early and the crack will propagate slowly, from months to years giving time for inspection. The inspection procedure can be found at dillvalves.com.
The breadth of the issues is from a few lots made in the summer of 2006, significantly less than 30 million are in question (that was the original amount we were studying with the independent rubber labs to narrow down what changed and when), we determined the suspect figure is well under 1 million pieces. The average consumer buys new tires every 2.5 to 2.75 years.
We have put corrective actions in place to assure this does not re-occur, including improving the material in the rubber compound, investing in an automatic compounding machine to record the ingredients put in each lot of rubber, and more testing of the finished product. We formerly made this product line in the US but were not price competitive, however, we are investigating making these parts again in the US to offer our customers a MADE IN USA valve stem (90%+ of valve stems sold in the US are made in Asia today).”
--Brian Rigney
General Manager, Dill Air Controls
